


"Advent"ures of Carmilla 2015

by hallow777



Series: "Advent"ures of Carmilla [1]
Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Advent Calendar 2015, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-25
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-03 09:40:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 29,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5285855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hallow777/pseuds/hallow777
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An Advent Fanfiction Calendar of Carmilla goodness. A new one each day in December all the way 'till Christmas.</p><p>December 21st:  Adventures in Summer Breaks AKA the one where Laura has to keep a secret from her father and her father freaks out because there is a panther in the woods near their house.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Adventures in Vampire Dental Hygiene.

**Author's Note:**

> These won't all be Christmas related though I expect there will be a few of them. Some might be long some might be short. Some might end up being connected some might be completely all on their own but hopefully there will be a new one each day. I have a few written already so hopefully I can stay on track but things have been crazy for me lately but I'm going to try my best. 
> 
> I hope you will be looking forward to them!

Laura sleepily rolled out of bed and got to her feet as her alarm blared. She quickly turned it off and headed into the bathroom without even glancing at her roommate’s bed. It was early, Carmilla probably wasn’t back from her nightly vampire activities yet so she didn’t bother looking.

The bathroom door was shut but not locked and although it struck Laura as a bit odd seeing as she usually left the door open, she wasn’t awake enough to really think about it.

Inside, she found Carmilla was busy brushing her teeth and after receiving a quick glare, Laura shut the door and left Carmilla to finish up.

But then…

“Are you brushing your fangs?” Laura asked curiously as she pushed open the door again.

“Laura…” Another glare was shot Laura’s way but the tiny human didn’t care.

“I never see you with them out. Like do they retract or do they just disappear and reappear when you need or want them too? Can they get cavities? Do vampires have to go to the dentist? What-”

Carmilla spat the rest of the toothpaste into the sink and then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand before turning to Laura and pushing past her rather roughly, “it’s too late to deal with this.”

“It’s six am.”

“Exactly,” the vampire replied with a grin before promptly collapsing into her own bed and falling asleep, leaving Laura with a mind full of questions that were likely never to be answered.

* * *

 

Two years later, so many things had happened and they had all been through so much in that time that Laura never really had a chance to wonder about the dental hygiene of a vampire again.

Until it became something she had to worry about.

“Come on, cupcake,” Carmilla said, gently bumping shoulders with the slightly grumpy girl next to her, “what’s got you so grumpy?”

“It’s nothing…” Laura trailed off but after a look from Carmilla she gave in, “I’ve got a toothache.”

Carmilla just raised an eyebrow at her, “guess even vampire healing isn’t enough to combat all that sugar you eat. Just brush your teeth more. If you keep them clean, then your body will just renew your teeth constantly. One of the perks of being a vampire, I guess.”

“I am brushing though! Like, all the time but it’s just getting worse,” Laura threw her hands up into the air in frustration.

“Guess you are going to have to cut back on the cookies then.”

“Never.”

* * *

 

Later that night Laura was brushing her teeth for about the sixth time that day when she heard a distinct smacking sound coming from behind her where Carmilla had apparently just smacked her hand against her forehead.

“How long have you been standing there?” Laura asked.

“Long enough to realize what your problem is.”

“Oh? Can to share your wisdom with me, oh great vampire teacher?”

“Your fangs.”

“My fangs?”

“You need to make them come out so you can brush them too,” Carmilla said with just a little bit of regret that she had apparently forgotten to tell Laura about this during all their “Becoming a Vampire 101” study sessions.

Laura just stared at her for a second before grinning widely, “I knew it! You were brushing your fangs that day!”

And so, Laura’s tooth problem was solved but another arose soon after that when Carmilla happened to let what happen slip out when she was talking to Mattie.

Centuries later, Mattie still found great joy in shouting “don’t forget to brush your fangs!” at Laura as often as possible.


	2. Adventures in Thanksgiving

“What’s wrong with Laura?” Danny asked as she approached the group’s table for lunch and noticed that Laura was unusually quiet with her head resting on the table as Lafontaine and Perry talked amongst themselves about their holiday plans.

A groan and a head thunk was all that she got from Laura so she looked to Perry and Lafontaine for answers.

Lafontaine just shrugged, “apparently her dad’s new bae and family is going to be joining them for thanksgiving this year.”

“Please, please don’t call her that,” Laura said as a shudder went down her body.

“Oh, that one super intense lady you’ve been talking about for a while? I guess things are getting serious if you guys are doing holidays together,” Danny commented as she took the cookie from her tray and gave it to Laura who devoured it immediately.

“Yeah. Her. I don’t see how my dad can stand her she’s so strict and uptight. Like the complete opposite of my dad. Plus I get to meet all her kids this time.”

“I thought you already met your possible future step siblings?”

“Ugh, don’t even joke about that. I met two of them. The youngest and the oldest. Will and Mattie, both of which don’t seem to like me. This will be the first time I meet the middle one. Camilla or Carmilla or something like that. I’m sure she will be just as rude and horrible as the rest of her family.”

“Cheer up, Hollis,” Danny said as Laura let her head drop with a thunk onto the table again, “no one can resist your ‘Hollis Charm’ for long. You are too likeable, give them some time. They will come around, I’m sure.”

“Yeah, you are probably right… It’s just I have never met such an… intense person as Lilita. I feel like I’m constantly being judged or something. It’s just nerve wracking but I guess there has to be something that my dad sees in her. I have to try to get along, for him. She’s the first person he’s been interested in since my mom died.”

“That’s the spirit. If things get too bad you are always welcome to come spend the holidays with me and my crazy family.”

Laura smiled, “thanks, Danny.”

* * *

 

Laura had to admit, they hadn’t even gotten to thanksgiving dinner yet and she was seriously considering calling Danny to come rescue her. Things were not going well and Mattie and the middle girl hadn’t even made it yet.

Lilita said something about them being stuck in traffic but Will had muttered something about them taking their time because they didn’t want to be there and how he wished he had gone with them.

Jack Hollis was always a man of “whatever happens, happens” so he didn’t seem bothered by delaying their dinner and neither did Lilita which was odd considering she was so strict about everything else.

So they were all just awkwardly waiting.

She had tried, she really did. She tried to make small talk with Will but he just brushed her off and went back to playing some incredibly loud and violent sounding game on his phone.

As for Lilita, well, Laura had tried to make small talk with her but the woman had a way of getting under a person’s skin and talking to her felt more like an interrogation so Laura quickly excused herself and let Lilita get back to making heart eyes at Jack.

Yuck.

She busied herself for a while making sure the food was cooking properly- well, mostly just making sure everything stayed warm while they waited for the last two to show up. The turkey was the only thing still cooking. After a while of checking it every five minutes, her father had told her that he would keep an eye on it.

Laura stood around awkwardly for a little bit before deciding to give up and curled up on the couch and started texting anyone who would listen to her complain about how well her thanksgiving was going so far.

Every couple of minutes, Laura would look up at the clock and get more and more irritated that Mattie and the girl hadn’t arrived yet.

By the time the door finally slammed open, making everyone jump as the two women stomped in, Laura was sure that this wasn’t going to go well at all. How could she get along with someone who made them wait for THREE hours?

“Glad to see that you two finally made it. That must have been some truly horrible traffic,” Lilita said, walking down the hallway to the front door. Normally Laura liked to keep her distance but she was annoyed and wanted to see what excuse they would have so she followed her.

“It was,” Mattie said as she pulled off her coat and hung it up, making sure to brush the snowflakes out of her hair before greeting her mother properly then moving towards Laura, “good to see you again...Laura.”

“You too,” she replied and normally she would have been irritated that clearly Mattie had some trouble remembering her name but Laura’s attention was quickly caught by the woman still by the door.

“It was absolutely terrible, mother You wouldn’t believe it. It’s like everyone forgot how to drive when the snow started falling,” the woman said flashing a bright smile at her mother who stared for a minute then spun on her heel and headed back to the dining room.

The moment Lilita’s back was turned, the woman’s face fell back into a scowl and she looked to Laura who was admittedly still staring at the amount of leather the woman had on, “can I help you?”

“Uh,” Laura stammered for a second before she finally got her mind working again, “I’m Laura, Jack’s daughter.”

Laura held out her hand but the woman just pushed past her, calling out “Carmilla” over her shoulder.

It only took a second for Laura to follow after her.

So she was going to get to spend the holidays with a really hot girl, maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Even if Carmilla could potentially become her step sibling but she prefered not to think about that right now.

Before making her way to the table, she sent out a quick text to the group.

_Laura: This might not be so bad after all. Three hours late, Mattie and “Carmilla” showed up. Carmilla is definitely not what I expected. In a good way._

Immediately Danny texted back.

_Danny: ????_

_Laura: Leather. Pants._

* * *

 

As it turns out, no matter how well Carmilla rocked the leather pants, it did nothing to help with her personality. She could absolutely see the resemblance between the siblings now.

They were all so rude but they seemed to know better than to do it out right and especially never to Jack. Carmilla had once almost said something rude to him and Lilita had shot her a look that made Laura cower in fear and it wasn’t even directed at her.

They just clearly didn’t want to be there and managed to make it known, even if Mr. and Mrs. Heart Eyes couldn’t see it.

Laura sure did.

But still, she held her tongue because as weird and gross as it was, her father was clearly smitten with this woman and she didn’t want to get in the middle of that. He deserved some happiness and even though Lilita really wasn’t her favorite person, she didn’t get the feeling that the woman was going to use him in anyway. She seemed to be just as smitten.

Dinner finally ended without too much fuss and Laura was very thankful for that until Lilita spoke up.

“Since the two of you were so late, I think it’s only fair that you two clean up, yes?”

The pained expression that came over both Mattie and Carmilla’s faces would have been hilarious if Laura’s face wasn’t mirroring theirs. She wanted to just quickly clean and be done, maybe even hide out in the kitchen and clean while they rest of them made small talk but of course not.

“Of course, mother,” Mattie stood up from the table and ever so reluctantly, Carmilla followed and they headed into the kitchen.

So now Laura had a choice.

She could stay out here with her father, Lilita, and Will and make even more small talk.

Or she could go help Mattie and Carmilla clean without Lilita to make sure they aren't being overly rude.

Neither seemed appealing so she bought herself some time to check her phone.

_Perry: Are things going well now? I do hope they are going better than things are here. Lafontaine tried to… experiment on our turkey. My parents are greatly regretting having Lafontaine and their family over. Again._

_Danny: What’s going on with leather girl? She sounds iffy, be careful Hollis._

_Lafontaine: How was I supposed to know that it would cause the turkey to literally walk off the table????_

_Danny: Laura? Yooohoo Laura, are you okay?_

_Danny: Laura?_

_Danny: Laura???_

_Danny: If you don’t answer soon I’m coming to save you from the evil clutches of leather girl and her scary mother._

_Laura: First of all, I’m okay. Annoyed and exhausted and they are still here, but I am okay. I don’t need the calvary. Second, walked off the table???_

In the end, Laura decided to take her chances in the kitchen.

* * *

 

“-have you ever seen her act that way towards anyone ever? It’s disgusting.”

“It is. I might even be jealous though. I don’t think she’s ever looked at any of us that way.”

Clearly this wasn’t a conversation that Laura needed to be in on so to try and keep things from being even more awkward, she made a show of walking into the kitchen, “need any help in here?”

Carmilla outright scowled at her, “I think we can handle a little cleaning, buttercup.”

“I’m sure you can,” Laura started, not backing down from Carmilla, “but it would go a lot faster if you let me help then we can all go back to our lives.”

Carmilla continued to stare for a moment longer before finally conceding, “she has a point. We don’t know where anything goes.”

And that was the extent of the conversation for the next twenty minutes as Carmilla and Mattie washed the dishes and then Laura dried and put them up. The Hollis household did have a dishwasher but it was currently full with the stuff from actually cooking while what they were washing now was the dishes from serving and eating.

None of them seemed to want to wait for the dishwasher to be done to load it up again.

They were just about done when Will burst into the room looking panicked. He looked at Laura and hesitated but then looked to his sisters and came out with it, “I think they are going to start a movie.”

All three woman groaned in unison then the other two looked at Laura in surprise.

Laura just shrugged, “I’m just as thrilled about all this as you guys.”

Before anyone could say anything Laura’s father stuck his head into the kitchen telling them they were going to watch a movie if they wanted to join.

“We would love to,” came the ever polite reply from Mattie but Laura spoke up with a smile.

“I totally would, dad but you know that really really big assignment Cochrane gave us over break? I really should finish that.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want you to feel left out, pumpkin.”

“I’m sure. You guys have fun.”

“I don’t really see why you have assignments over the break. Professors sure are hard these days but okay, I know you’ve been worried about this. Good luck and we will be down here if you happen to change your mind.”

“Thanks, dad,” Laura said with a smile and a wave as her father started to head back to the living room. The assignment wasn’t due until well after the holidays but she did want to get a head start on it, plus it was a good excuse to get out of spending another two hours in awkwardness.

Unfortunately, before her father could leave, Carmilla spoke up loudly, “Cochrane, huh? I had that one last year, maybe I could help you out?”

Of course, Laura’s first instinct was “absolutely not” but her father turned around to look at her with such hope in his eyes that she was going to get along with the siblings that she couldn’t let him down.

“Uh, sure.”

Laura headed out of the kitchen and up the stairs to her room, assuming that Carmilla would follow which she did.

It took all of five seconds for Carmilla to give up her helpful act and to flop on Laura’s bed.

“You didn’t even have Cochrane, did you?”

“Nope. I don’t even know who or what that is.”

“Didn’t want to watch the movie with the rest?”

“Absolutely not.”

The next two hours were spent in silence despite Laura’s best efforts to get Carmilla to talk, she just refused to.

Eventually there was a small knock at the door and Will announced that finally they were leaving so they headed downstairs and Laura was happy this was almost over, that she could finally relax on her bed that probably smelled like leather after Carmilla lounged on it for hours.

And then Jack Hollis said the magical words, “let’s do this again for Christmas.”

There might have been actual tears of pain in Will’s eyes.


	3. Adventures in Soulmates

Soulmate markings had been around for as long as people could remember and with society’s ever changing focus on new things, soulmate markings were a thing of the past as far as the world was concerned.

Magazines and the internet were filled with ideas and tips on how to cover up your markings or how to make your markings more useful. Years ago, it was frowned upon to cover up your markings, as if complete strangers had a right to know what age your soulmate would be when you first meet, but now it was common to see people hiding them either because it didn’t matter to them or they didn’t want to know.

Luckily this worked out well for Laura Hollis.

From the moment of conception- new researchers believe- a number is written on a person’s chest, over their heart. This number shows the age of their soulmate when they first meet. Small children often made games of it, trying to figure out things about their soulmate but often once they were old enough to understand it, it became a thing of the past.

After all, just the age of your soulmate doesn’t really give much to go on. Most people hope that they will meet their soulmate when they reach the same age as their soulmate but that doesn’t always happen.

Often times people don’t even realise they are soulmates until later on in their relationship when they realize that the ages match when they first met. Some don’t realize it until the numbers fade to resemble white scars, signaling that their soul mate has died.

Laura’s case was a bit of a special one because you see, while most people end up meeting their soulmates in their twenties or even up to their forties, Laura apparently wasn’t going to meet her soulmate until her soulmate was three hundred and thirty four.

It was definitely odd, to say the least.

It had been common practice for a while now to have a nurse or someone nearby to quickly clean the chest area of the baby when they are first born without looking at the number and stick a patch over it for the parents to either look at later or as was the trend now, keep it hidden until much later on so that the person doesn’t have to worry about numbers when looking for a relationship.

So, Laura considered herself lucky that the doctors and nurses didn’t see her numbers when she was born, otherwise she was sure she would have been some kind of special case. Wisely, her parents had decided to keep it hidden from all others to save their daughter some hassle.

Now though, at age nineteen and heading off to Silas University for her first year, Laura had made peace with the fact she was never going to find her soulmate. She wasn’t really happy about it but she accepted the fact that her soulmate was likely some deceased person she was going to “meet” in a museum or something who had passed away long ago and would only technically be three hundred and thirty four now. It had to be something like that, anyway seeing as her numbers had been faded to white since she was born.

Plus, these days people had all kinds of relationships even if it wasn’t with their soulmates, it’s not like she was destined to be alone forever.

She had very high hopes about meeting someone at Silas.

* * *

 

Eighteen year old Countess Mircalla Karnstein dreamed of the day she would meet her soulmate. In a time where not much skin was shown, showing soulmate numbers was a new trend and as a countess, she was expected to keep up with the new trends.

Luckily, she had no problem wearing dresses with sheer portions over her number, proudly displaying the number nineteen for all to see.

But then she was murdered and dropped into the dark life of a vampire and her numbers were all but forgotten, after all, who would love a vampire?

Years went by and Elle came along as Maman’s next target and Carmilla allowed herself a bit of hope after finding out that Elle was nineteen when they met. By this time, people had gone back to covering up their numbers and despite a lot of trying, Carmilla never got to see what Elle’s number was.

In the end, it didn’t matter anyway though because it turns out she was right all along.

No one could love a vampire.

Maman made sure that Carmilla watched the life drain out of Elle before sealing her away in the coffin but Carmilla was more focused on the stable boy in the background who dropped to his knees, clutching his chest as Elle died, his numbers likely fading to white.

It wasn’t meant to be. Vampires didn’t get soulmates. It was just leftover when she was human.

She never let herself dwell on the fact that her numbers hadn’t faded to white in all the years she had been walking the earth.

It had to be a mistake.

No one could love a vampire.

* * *

 

“-in 1698 it may as well been sex.”

Laura snorted softly as they gently danced around what little floor space they had, “you are such an old lady.”

“Excuse you, I am only three hundred and thirty four. Practically a child.”

“Then I must really seem like a child to you at nineteen,” Laura laughed but then what Carmilla said started to sink in.

Three hundred and thirty four.

No way.

No freaking way.

“No, it couldn’t be...” Carmilla said softly. So softly that if Laura hadn’t been just inches from her, she wouldn’t have heard her.

“Carm?”

Instantly Carmilla let go of Laura and put some distance between them, “it’s nothing. Just- you should get some rest like raggedy ann over there if you want to save the other one.”

Carmilla headed into the bathroom and Laura sat down heavily on Carmilla’s bed to try and process what had just happened.

Was Carmilla really her soulmate? Her soulmate was actually alive? Well, as alive as a vampire could be?

There was only one way to find out.

* * *

Carmilla’s fingers gently traced over the numbers on her chest that were still showing bright red in the mirror, just like they have all these years. People assumed that it meant your soulmate was alive but maybe it just meant that they haven’t died even if they hadn’t been born yet.

But there was no way she could tell Laura though, not without finding out what her numbers were. She wouldn’t take a chance on getting hurt again. Not after Elle.

Carmilla was so deep in her thoughts that she didn’t hear the door opening behind her until Laura was standing next to her, staring at the reflection of Carmilla’s numbers in the mirror

Without a word, Laura peeled off her shirt and Carmilla was confused for a minute to see unmarked skin where the numbers should be but as Laura went to peel it off, she realized it was one of those patches that were popular now to cover them up so they didn’t know what they were.

“Don’t,” she reached out and stopped Laura’s hand, causing the girl to look up at her questioningly, “there are all kinds of nineteen year olds around here, it doesn’t have to be you. If you have any hope of whatever this is what we have going any further, then I don’t want to know. Vampires don’t have soulmates.”

Laura bit her lip and twisted her arm out of Carmilla’s hand and went back to trying to peel off the patch but they were made to last and were a bit hard to get off.

It was making Carmilla nervous to watch her pick at the corner of the patch but she couldn’t bring herself to turn around so she wouldn’t see it. Some small part of her still held just a little bit of hope.

“Laura…”

“You’re wrong.”

“About what?”

Laura cheered just a little when she finally got her fingernail underneath the patch and looked up so she could watch Carmilla’s face as she peeled it off, “I think vampires do have soulmates.”

And then there they were, the white numbers there on Laura’s skin. They weren’t nearly as noticeable as Carmilla’s bright red numbers but they were standing out like neon lights to Carmilla right now.

Could this actually be real? Could it really be true?

Without really thinking about it, Carmilla reached forward and let her fingers touch the slightly rough texture of the numbers but Laura didn’t flinch, she just kept looking at the older girl with a small smile.

Finally, Carmilla looked up and gave Laura one of those very rare smiles.

Maybe vampires did have soulmates after all.


	4. Adventures in Opposite Roommates

“Because of a slight...error on the faculty’s fault, all students have been rearranged to different dorms than what you have been previously told. New students need to head to the auditorium for a brief mandatory orientation before moving in. Returning students can locate the RA you had last year for your new dorm assignment. RA’s should be in the courtyard. As always, please don’t stray from the clear paths when making your way across campus. Silas University is not responsible for what may happen if you step off them,” the loud sound system finally clicked off and Laura headed towards the courtyard, thanking god that she was returning for her second year at Silas.

Freshman year at Silas had been a whirlwind for small town Laura who had to admit she was rather sheltered but she adjusted well. She’d made friends out her floor don and the unofficial floor don who was always with Perry and she’d gotten to know Danny the TA pretty well too.

College life was going pretty well so far and she was excited to be back.

Up ahead, she could see Perry and Lafontaine handing out papers to the students that approached them, pointing them in the direction of their dorms. It only took a few minutes for the line to move up and for Laura to reach them.

“Hey guys.”

“Laura! So good to see you again. Let’s see, I’ve got your paper right here,” Perry shuffled through her stack of papers until she finally found Laura’s and brought it to the front, “looks like you are in the same building with us again. You are in 307 with… oh.”

“Oh? Is something wrong?”

“No, no it’s nothing just…” Perry trailed off and Lafontaine looked over the floor don’s shoulder to see the paper.

“Ooooh, you are rooming with Karnstein. Good luck with that.”

Laura frowned, “Karnstein? Who is that? And why are you looking at me so weirdly? Is she bad?”

Lafontaine went to answer but Perry cut them off, “not bad, exactly just… doesn’t seem to get along with people well? But if anyone can help bring her out of her shell, it’s you.”

“You know that girl who always dresses in dark clothes and is usually hanging around in odd places? The one with the aura of doom around her who looks like she will bite your head off if you even try to approach her? That’s Karnstein. Carmilla Karnstein.”

“Oh. Her,” Laura had noticed her before but mostly in a “wow is she really wearing leather pants” kind of way. It never went much beyond that because clearly she was not there to make friends.

“You’ll be fine. So, here you go. Let’s catch up later for dinner, okay? After you get settled in,” Perry handed the paper to Laura and sent her on her way so that they could get through the line that was steadily forming behind Laura before dinner time.

* * *

 

Unlike her freshman year, Laura knew how to pack better and knew what she really would need and wouldn’t need so it didn’t take long to move her stuff to her new room and get settled in. It was almost dinner time and her roommate still hadn’t showed up but Laura had already decided not to worry about her new roommate.

If Carmilla wanted to stick to herself, that was fine, she would respect that. If she did happen to want to be friends, Laura would absolutely be open to that though.

If she ever actually showed up. Technically students had all day to move in but just about every one was done by now and getting ready to grab some dinner.

With one last look at the room, making sure that everything was set up like she wanted it on her side of the room, Laura headed out to dinner with her friends.

A while later, as the sun was starting to set, Laura made it back to her dorm and was very surprised to see that while her roommate was not in their room, she had definitely been there.

It looked like a tornado had been through there.

Laura’s stuff was untouched but the other side of the room looked like Carmilla had walked in and set off a bomb of her stuff that just exploded everything onto the nearest surface. The bed seemed to be the only thing that showed a little bit of effort and even that was just that a fitted sheet was on it now.

Determined not to let it bother her, after all she had prepared herself for the horrible college roommate ordeal since last year but she had ended up with Betty instead, and showered and went to bed without seeing her roommate.

In the morning, Laura woke up to see a lump under a blanket on the other bed and got excited about finally getting to meet her roommate except even after Laura loudly got dressed and got ready for the day, Carmilla was still asleep.

Eventually Laura headed to the few classes she had that started that day and hung out with Perry and Lafontaine until it was just about dark again.

When she got back, Carmilla was gone.

* * *

 

Things continued exactly like that for one week before they finally got to actually talk to each other. They had come close once before, Laura had come back a little early and Carmilla was still in bed but when Laura had come out of the bathroom, Carmilla was already gone.

Now though, Laura had gotten to their dorm door just as it opened from inside and suddenly she was face to face with Carmilla who was actually awake for once.

“H-hey,” Laura stuttered out and Carmilla just raised an eyebrow at her before saying the same and then pushing past her.

* * *

 

Two weeks into the semester Carmilla was gone when Laura got back but sometime in the middle of the night, Laura woke up to the door being slammed open and Carmilla stormed in and headed to the bathroom. It took Laura a few seconds to realize that it was storming pretty hard outside and that Carmilla was soaking wet.

After a long shower, Carmilla finally emerged and ended up lounging on her bed for the rest of the night but unfortunately Laura ended up falling asleep before Carmilla came back out of the bathroom.

A month after moving into the dorm, Laura was starting to get a little frustrated by the lack of communication. Other than a few little words here and there and a few passive aggressive notes, they hadn’t really communicated or seen each other much at all.

Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Laura had certainly seen plenty of the back of Carmilla’s head as she slept the entire day away. When did she even have classes? Did Silas even have night classes?

But unless she wanted to awkwardly wait up for Carmilla with no real reason to, it wasn’t going to happen.

* * *

 

“Um, Laura? Are you sure you are okay? Do you think maybe you should slow down on that?” Danny asked as she watched Laura down her fourth white chocolate frozen coffee drink while studying in the library.

“Yeah, sure. I’m good. What makes you say that? I’m just studying. I really need to get all this reading done and over with then I don’t have to worry about it when all these tests come up soon. Plus I need to study for those too and this stuff is really, really good. I normally don’t even drink coffee but these are really sweet and good and I think it really is helping me focus,” Laura spoke rapidly, practically bouncing around in her chair as she looked up at the tall girl.

“Its nothing just, don’t stay up too late, okay? I know its the weekend but you are going to regret it if you end up staying up all night. Plus, the library is creepy after dark. Go back to your room soon, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. I will. I promise. Just a little more studying.”

Danny nodded and with one last unsure look at Laura, she left the girl to study and study she did. Her caffeine buzz lasted until well after dark and it wasn’t until the books started flying off the shelves that Laura realized what time it was.

She packed up her stuff quickly and got out just in time for the doors to slam shut behind her only to find that it was pouring down rain again. Luckily for her, she always kept an umbrella in her bag.

Silas weather was unpredictable at best. It once started snowing even though it was eighty degrees outside and no one batted an eyelash.

The library wasn’t too far away from the dorm building Laura’s room was in so she managed to get there without getting too soaked.

Inside her room, the lights were off which was to be expected considering it was after dark and Carmilla was likely to be gone so Laura just kicked her shoes off and started straightening up the room. She was nowhere near tired yet.

Carmilla never kept anything clean and her stuff always started making it towards Laura’s side of the room and usually Laura would just push it back to Carmilla’s side but today she was feeling a bit generous and thought she would actually pick up a bit.

The dishes were done first and then she started on the clothes that were lying around. Most were sticky with something Laura didn’t even want to think about so she just picked them up and put them in the empty laundry hamper, hoping that Carmilla would do laundry at some point.

Just as Laura stood back up with one of Carmilla’s bras in her hand, the bathroom door opened, making Laura jump.

“Do you always sneak around fondling my bras?”

“No! No, of course not. I was just, um,” Laura looked away from her roommate who was standing there in only a towel after having taken a shower apparently, “cleaning up a little.”

“Isn’t it a little late for cleaning?”

“No?”

Carmilla just hummed and then headed past Laura to the wardrobe to grab some clothes before heading back to the bathroom to get dressed. Laura took this time to quickly throw the bra into the laundry before grabbing some of her own pjs to change into.

Carmilla took her sweet time to finish up in the bathroom and Laura practically bounced on her bed the entire time and rushed into the bathroom as soon as Carmilla came out.

Ten minutes later, Laura came out dressed in her pjs and ready for bed to find Carmilla lying on her own bed reading a very old looking book.

“So uh… goodnight, I guess,” Laura said as she crawled into her own bed but didn’t receive a reply from Carmilla which was to be expected. This was already the most they have talked in the entire month they had been roommates.

An hour later, they were both in the same position they were before. Carmilla was still reading and Laura was still lying in bed, unable to sleep.

Maybe Danny was right maybe she shouldn’t have drunk quite so much coffee but they tasted so good.

“Something on your mind, buttercup?” Carmilla finally asked after listening to Laura shift around for an hour even though she knew she was likely going to regret this.

“Hmm, not really. Wanna play twenty questions and get to know each other?”

“No.”

And then they were back to silence.

And back to shifting around.

Carmilla sighed, “fine.”

“Yes!” Laura cheered, “okay so, why are you up all night and sleep all day?”

With absolutely no hesitation, “because I’m a vampire.”

There was a pause, “O-okay, um your turn to ask me a question.”

“Why are you still awake?”

“Too much coffee while studying. Why do you drink soy milk? Are you lactose intolerant? Or do you just like the taste better?”

“It’s not soy milk. It’s blood.”

“Because you are a vampire?”

“Exactly.”

Laura sighed, “you know, if you didn’t want to answer any questions you could have just said so. I’m sorry that I’m bothering you, I’ll try to be still so you can read.”

“It would be appreciated.”

* * *

Later on, when the semester was almost over, Danny burst into room 307 in a panic, grabbing Laura’s arm and trying to pull her out of the room.

“Danny, Danny! Slow down, what’s going on?”

“It’s your roommate! We gotta get you out of here before she comes back. It’s not safe.”

Laura dug her heels into the floor, trying to pull her arm out of Danny’s grip unsuccessfully, “what in the world are you talking about? She might be completely antisocial but she’s not dangerous.”

“She’s a vampire! I saw her! There was some kind of uprising on campus, I don’t even know what it was or who was doing it but I saw her just tear into some guy when he tried to attack the Dean. She drank his blood, Laura. We gotta get you out of here you’ve been living with her, she’s probably got you marked as emergency food or something.”

With a particularly hard yank, Danny propelled them through the door only to come face to face with a very bloody Carmilla.

“Stay away from her!” Danny shouted but Carmilla just ignored the tall girl in favor of looking to Laura who was staring at her in shock.

“Why so surprised, cupcake? I already told you what I was.”

“You WHAT? You knew??” Danny practically roared but Laura just stared at them both and tried to find her words.

“I didn’t… I thought… I thought you were joking?”

“I know we don’t really know each other that well, but I don’t joke.”

Laura was so shocked she didn’t even protest being pulled down the hallway by Danny.

* * *

 

A week later, the door to 307 opened slowly and Carmilla shot up in bed even though the sun was still up. Cautiously, Laura peeked her head into the room to see that Carmilla’s stuff had spread throughout the room.

“If Xena is behind you, you can go ahead and just leave me alone. I am not in the mood to deal with you two.”

“Danny isn’t here. It’s just me.”

“You may enter,” Carmilla flopped back on her bed even though she was still tense, just waiting for something to happen.

“Do I really need permission to enter my own room?”

Laura walked in and started kicking Carmilla’s stuff out of the way to make a path to her bed while Carmilla just shrugged and looked at her.

“So… Danny is convinced you are going to kill me, are you?”

“Will you believe me this time?”

“Yes.”

“Then no.”

“Why not?”

“Too much effort.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

It was Laura’s turn to shrug, “you can’t even be bothered to do the laundry until you have gone through both of our clothes and the only thing you have left to wear is my hogwarts pjs that you refuse to wear. You don’t expend effort on anything.”

“Somehow I don’t think Xena is going to accept that answer as easily as you did.”

“It doesn’t matter. She can’t protect me from everything and I can’t stay at the Summer’s house any longer. They are driving me insane. So I’m coming back to the dorm and we can continue to ignore each other like normal, deal?”

“Deal.”

Despite Danny’s protests things went back to normal for the most part but some things did change. Carmilla started waking up a little earlier so that she could see Laura before Laura went to bed and Laura started doing the same.

It was weird and they may only see each other for about two hours each day, but they made it work and Laura could finally tell people that she did actually know things about her roommate.


	5. Adventures in Roller Coasters

“Absolutely not, Frosh, there is no way. I may be crazy but I am not that crazy.”

“Perry?”

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to sit this one out too, Laura. We did just eat. I don’t think that ride would be very gentle on my stomach. Or any other part of me, really.”

“Guess it’s just you and me, Danny.”

“Uh, about that...”

“Oh come on,” Laura put her hands on her hips and stared up at Danny, “not you too.”

“Sorry, but have you seen that thing? I can’t believe you want to ride that death trap of a roller coaster.”

“It will be so fun, I promise.”

“Can’t we go on the slightly less horrifying one?” Danny tried to reason with Laura but Laura wasn’t having any of it.

“I’m going on this one with or without you guys so make up your mind. You are a Summer. You are supposed to be fearless!”

“Yes, and I’d like to continue to be a Summer instead of potentially dying on that thing.”

“Un-be-lievable.”

“I’ll ride it with you,” came a voice from behind Laura and she whipped around to see a dark haired girl standing there. 

“Excellent. Let’s go. Bye guys, see you at the end!” Laura turned to walk over to the new girl when Danny spoke up.

“Laura, what the hell you can’t just go off with some random girl! You don’t even know her! She could be a serial killer or vampire for all you know.”

“Doesn’t matter, we are going to go ride the roller coaster now. See you!”

Laura grabbed the other girl’s hand and pulled her along to the line, missing the smirk the girl shot back to the group. Once they were in line, she dropped her hand and apologized for dragging her into this.

“It’s alright, cupcake. If I hadn’t wanted to do this, I wouldn’t have said anything. I’ve been wanting to ride this baby all day but my siblings mysteriously vanished when I mentioned it. Cowards.” 

“Cool. Thank you. I didn’t really wanna ride it by myself but I would have. I’m Laura, by the way.”

“Carmilla. It looks like it’s our turn next, not going to back out on me now are you?”

“No way, let’s do this.”

They stepped up to the track and boarded the roller coaster as they were instructed to by the ride attendant, settling into the first section of seats as people quickly filled up the sections behind them.

All too quickly they were strapped in, the bars positioned securely over their shoulders then down to their chest. Carmilla immediately took up a death grip on the bars that Laura questioned, “not having any regrets, are you?”

“No, I love these kinds of things. I’m still going to hang on like my life depends on it though.”

“Good thinking.”

The ride started moving and Laura watched as the ground moved beneath their feet that were swaying gently. Above them, the tracks squeaked as they moved out of the starting point and out into the open.

“Don’t die!” Danny called out from below.

Laura was on the side away from the group so she craned her neck around Carmilla as much as she could and waved at them.

At the same time she took her hand off the handle, the ride shot into motion, propelling everyone forward with a scream.

Laura and Carmilla both screamed and laughed through the whole thing, greatly enjoying themselves until they got to the final part. 

Everyone knew there was a huge sudden drop at the end but it was in a cave that was pitch black, you couldn’t even see your hand in front of your face, not that anyone wanted let go of the handles to check.

The cave was long, occasionally making sharp turns to scare the riders into thinking it was the drop and the anticipation was the worse part. 

It seemed like ten minutes had past and Laura couldn’t take it anymore, she reached over and grabbed in the area she thought Carmilla’s hand would be. She kept hitting the bar itself but thankfully Carmilla got the hint and uncurled her fingers from the death grip she had on the handle and took Laura’s. They let their hands rest in the air between them as they waited for the drop.

Just as Laura was about to say something to her roller coaster buddy, they came to the drop and down they went screaming the entire way.

All too soon after the drop, they pulled up to the exit of the ride and had to let go of each others hands, gently shaking them to get the feeling back in them after squeezing them so hard.

Immediately, Laura’s group rushed up to them and Lafontaine spoke first, “so how was it?”

“It was amazing. You guys really should have come. That drop at the end was horrible in the best way possible,” Laura turned to Carmilla, “thanks for riding with me.”

“Anytime, cutie.”

“I hate to cut your fun short but we really need to head back to campus if we want to get back before it gets too dark. Some of us do have classes in the morning,” Perry told the group and distracted Laura for long enough that when she turned back around, Carmilla was gone.

“Laura, you ready?”

“Yeah, I’m coming,” Laura followed the group back to the car, not so subtly looking out for her roller coaster friend all the way. She would have at least liked to say goodbye but it wasn’t like she was ever going to see her again so maybe it didn’t matter.

Later that night, Laura laid in bed thinking about the roller coaster girl not knowing that Carmilla was doing the same.


	6. Adventures in Goop

“Hello? Anyone here?” Laura called out into the dark creepy lab that she was told to go to. Suddenly this wasn’t sounding like as good of an idea as it did earlier.

“In here! In here!”

Hesitantly, Laura followed the voice through a set of double doors and came across a short haired ginger in a lab coat fussing over a very unhappy looking dark haired girl.

“Are you Laura? Laura Hollis?”

“I am. Are you um… Lafontaine?”

“That I am. They and them pronouns, by the way. Oh and this grump here is Carmilla. Don’t let her surly demeanor dampen your mood.”

“Uh, okay? So what exactly am I supposed to be doing?”

When Laura had seen the flyers around campus looking for students to participate in a trial of sorts with compensation, she thought it would be a good idea to make a little extra money. Her father had been sending what money he could to her but even then she was stretching it pretty thin. She absolutely would not ask him to send more either, she knew he was trying his best to send what he could.

She wasn’t exactly expecting a mad scientist to be running the trial though.

“Don’t worry, you won’t have to do anything weird. I just have a few harmless things I need to try out on humans before I can present them for my final. Testing on animals is strictly prohibited here at Silas but willing humans are okay.”

Laura was silent so Lafontaine continued, “look, try not to be nervous. If you really feel uncomfortable doing this you can leave and I won’t bother you. If you decide you aren’t comfortable with this at anytime throughout the experiments then you can leave then too, okay? I am going to need the two of you to cooperate for some tests though, do you think you can manage that?” the last part was directed more at Carmilla who scowled but nodded.

“So,” they turned back to Laura, “are you in?”

* * *

 

Despite the voices in her head telling her that this was absolutely not a good idea, Laura went along with it and spent the next couple hours hooked up to different machines monitoring her and doing simple things so that Lafontaine could get a control sample to go off of.

Laura may not have been particularly thrilled about doing this, but Carmilla was even worse. She had no problem complaining through the entire thing.

At first it was completely annoying that she just kept on but Lafontaine seemed to be used to her ways and just gave it right back to her so Laura started enjoying watching them banter back and forth.

It was going better than she thought it would until Lafontaine said the magical words, “okay, we are almost done but for this last part I need you both to strip down to your underwear.”

“Uuuuuuh, why?” Laura said about the same time that Carmilla started talking.

“Finally making a move on me after all these years, I’m proud of you, nerd.”

“Oh shut up and just do it,” they glared at Carmilla and then addressed Laura, “because the last part is a bit of a sensory experiment. You guys are each going to go into these tanks here while I watch what happens. It may feel a little weird but nothing is going to happen. Your clothes floating around you will distract you though so they have to go. Completely nude would be even better but I’ll take what I can get.”

Laura looked over to the big tanks next to each other that Lafontaine had pointed at and decided that so far things hadn’t been so bad so this would probably be okay too. Carmilla was already next to the tank stripping down and Lafontaine rushed over to hook her up to some more machines.

While they were both distracted, Laura went ahead and took the opportunity to shed her clothes without an audience. She didn’t mind being in her underwear so much it was just that the act of stripping down in front of them made it feel a hundred times more embarrassing.

“I never really thought yellow was a good color, but you make it look pretty good,” Carmilla said when Lafontaine stepped away from her and headed over to Laura, no longer blocking Laura from view.

The bra and panty set she had on was a little bit on the unusual side being bright yellow but at least they matched. Laura was very thankful that she had decided to match when she got dressed this morning.

“Hush, if you make her blush too much it's going to throw off my readings,” Lafontaine started sticking wires and other things all over Laura body then instructed them to climb into the tanks and lay down.

She didn’t really know what she expected but mostly she just laid there in the water and listened to Lafontaine when they occasionally told them both to move slightly or to imagine something.

Sooner than expected, it was over and they both climbed out and got unhooked from the machines.

“Thank you guys, you were both great. Your compensation is in the other room so you guys can go ahead and dry off and get dressed if you want, I guess I should have told you guys to bring extra underwear but that would have sounded really creepy over email. I’ll be right back. Do. Not. Touch. Anything.”

“I don’t know about you, but that wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” Laura said while drying off with near by towels Lafontaine had left for them.

“It could have been worse. Usually something explodes when they are involved.”

Laura whipped her head around, her hair flinging water all over the lab as she looked at the other girl, “you’re joking, right?”

Carmilla smirked, “of course, cupcake, don’t get your panties in a bunch. I-”

Just then something did explode from behind Laura and suddenly everything went black.

* * *

 

The first thing Laura noticed when she woke up was that she was covered in something sticky and lying on the floor or something else hard.

The second thing was that Lafontaine and a girl with long curly red hair were arguing about something. It looked like the girl was yelling but she couldn’t hear what was being said, her ears were still ringing from the explosion.

Oh god, the explosion.

What had happened?

She must have moved or made a noise or something because all of a sudden Lafontaine was kneeling down beside her.

“Hey, Laura. Can you hear me? Are you hurt anywhere?”

She took a second to try to move her body, nothing seemed to be in pain really just… stuck.

“I don’t think so… What happened?”

“Water must have gotten onto one of my earlier experiments. It’s very unstable when water touches it. The good news is that I’ve got something that will dissolve this goop that you are in and get you off the floor. The bad news is that the dissolver can’t touch skin but it will loosen in about twenty four hours on its own.”

“So it’s going to stay on me for a whole day? Gross.”

Lafontaine and the woman who was arguing with the scientist before were looking at each other strangely.

“What is it? Why are you looking at each other like that?” as soon as she asked that, she felt something shift on her side and she looked over as best as she could.

“What in the frilly hell have you done now?” Carmilla yelled as she woke up and realized that she was stuck to the floor and to Laura.

If the dissolver couldn’t be used on skin then…

Oh no.

* * *

 

So not only was she literally stuck to the grumpiest person in the world, she was stuck to the grumpiest person in the world while they were both half naked.

They were at least not stuck to the floor anymore after half an hour of Lafontaine carefully dropping some of their dissolver stuff that strangely smelled like cherries on places where it wouldn’t touch their skin.

Some places there was enough goop between them that Lafontaine could safely separate them but they were still literally joined from the waist up along their sides, their arms were free though since they had fallen in an odd position with their arms going different directions.

So now they were sitting on the couch in a room off to the side of the lab, basically just watching the other red head- who she had found out was named Perry- switch back and forth between yelling at Lafontaine for having such dangerous things around and asking them a million questions about the possible side effects and other such things.

“Looks like we got ourselves in a real _sticky_ situation, huh?” Laura gently pushed against Carmilla’s side, jostling her enough that she looked up from where she was glaring at the floor and instead glared at Laura.

“Right, sorry. It’s just that if you just sit here and think about it then entire time then you are just going to make yourself and me by extension even more miserable.”

“Oh? And what do you suggest we do? Go for a nice stroll outside in the dark? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we aren’t exactly clothed enough for that.”

Oh yeah, she had definitely noticed but she was trying not to dwell on that too much, “how about watching some netflix? My laptop is in my bag over there. We could watch Doc-”

“If you say ‘Doctor Who’ I will douse us both in whatever concoction Dr. Ginger over there made to free us before I sit through that with you.”

Laura pouted, “it’s a good show! But I won’t force you to watch it, you’ll just hate it even more. What do you want to watch then?”

“Something dark and gritty. A horror movie or something.”

It took a minute for Laura to think about it, “have you watched Jessica Jones?”

“Doesn’t that have some guy from Doctor Who in it?” Carmilla narrowed her eyes at Laura.

“It does but I’m like ninety eight percent sure you will like it. Give it a chance, please? For me? If you don’t like it after the first episode, you can pick whatever you want.”

“Anything I want?”

“As long as its on Netflix or Hulu then, yes.”

“Deal. Now start this thing so we can get it over with and get to watching some actual good movies.”

Once the episode started, Perry was quick to supply them with plenty of food and blankets and they stretched out on the couch as much as they could being stuck together and settled in.

After the first episode, Carmilla claimed that she couldn’t think of anything she wanted to watch so they might as well just watch more Jessica Jones and though she wouldn’t admit it, by the way her attention was completely focused on the screen, Laura knew she was really enjoying it.

The second one ended and Lafontaine and Perry bid them goodnight but not before making sure they both had their numbers incase something went wrong during the night and told the two that they would be back in the morning to check on them.

Laura didn’t even bother asking and instead just switched to the next episode but after a while she couldn’t stop fidgeting and it was driving Carmilla insane.

“I’m going to regret this, but what’s wrong?”

Laura bit her lip and blushed, looking away from Carmilla and mumbling something.

“Sorry, what was that? My ears maybe good but they aren’t that good.”

“I have to pee.”

Well, this was going to be awkward.


	7. Adventures in Dragons

It had been nearly a month since the Hollis- Straka wedding was interrupted and the bride kidnapped by a nearby clan of Dragons but the armt was finally ready.

Theo was ready to get his bride to be back.

He knew that residents of both kingdoms were talking behind his back, they were sure that after a month there would be nothing left of Laura to bring back but Laura was strong, a fighter, she had to be alive still.

The kingdom may not have faith but King Hollis wanted to believe that his daughter was still alive so much that he was willing to give Theo anything he needed to rescue her.

“For the princess!” he cried out, raising his sword high in the air signaling that it was time to move out. The small army he had with him repeated after him and they all started moving out of the gates and towards the mountains where the dragon’s nest was.

* * *

No one before had lived to see the dragon’s nest up in the mountain so Theo and his army was rather surprised to find that it was less of a rudimentary nest and more of a magnificent castle with a typical nest nestled into the top between the four towers.

“We have come for the princess! Release her to me at once, beasts!” Theo shouted at the castle, not really expecting anything from the beasts but he wanted to look good for his soldiers.

At the top of the castle, a large sophisticated black dragon head lifted up lazily to look over the side at them. It regarded them for a moment before turning away and moving out of sight.

“Storm the castle!”

The soldiers look at one another but an order was an order. Clearly their leader was not a strategist though.

Once they started moving and were within a few feet of the castle, the front gate lifted and a small person walked out, much to the soldiers joy.

“Princess! You are alive!” Theo rushed over to Laura but was quickly intercepted by another black dragon, though this seemed to be a little smaller than the last. It still towered over Theo by many, many feet but clearly he didn’t care, he drew his sword anyway and held it out in front of him, “get away from her!”

“Put that away, Theo.”

“What are you saying, Laura? I am here to save you.”

Laura looked to the dragon then back at Theo, “okay yeah, they did kidnap me but really they just saved me from having to marry you.”

“Laura, please. It’s okay, you don’t have to say these things to please them. I am going to free you from them. Men, attack!”

The soldiers advanced but a quick spit of fire in a line stopped them in their tracks and suddenly Theo was left alone with Laura and the dragon.

“No, seriously. I don’t want to marry you now and I never have.”

“You are just confused after being away. We were in love, don’t you remember?”

“I remember you and my father not listening to my wishes and pushing this marriage into happening just to unite the kingdoms,” a small hesitation, “my heart already belongs to another.”

“WHO IS THE MAN WHO HAS STOLEN YOUR HEART?” Theo roared and Laura actually took a step backwards away from him, startled and a little nervous.

“That’d be me,” a voice came from off to the side and Theo turned to see a woman standing where the dragon was before.

“But you are a woman!”

Carmilla looked to Laura, “can I just…?”

“Go ahead.”

The next thing Theo knew, a fist was flying at his head and everything went black.

* * *

 

“-what do we do with him?”

“Leave him to rot down here?”

“I feel like I’ve been a bad influence on you. I love it.”

Theo groaned and tried to move but found that he was chained to the wall, “what is going on? What have you done to Laura. My Laura would never do something like this.”

Laura snorted without a care, “ _your_ Laura doesn’t exist. Never did. You just saw what you wanted to see. An ideal princess to marry to help out your failing kingdom.”

“But-”

“No. Go back. Tell my father that I am well but that I am staying here and not to send any more people after me. I will not guarantee their safety,” Laura turned away from him, “Carmilla if you would be so kind…”

“My pleasure.”

And then everything went black again.

The next time he woke up he was being carted back to the kingdom by his soldiers.

He planned to go back, gather more warriors together and go back to save his clearly brainwashed bride to be. Now that he knew dragons could shift into a human form, maybe that would give them an advantage.

No matter what, King Hollis was not going to be pleased.

In the end, it didn’t matter. At the foot of the mountain, they were killed by a group of highwaymen and their camp was burned. Scouts that were eventually sent out from the kingdoms reported back that everything was burned and it was assumed the dragons did it.

King Hollis eventually put up a very nice reward for any knights who were willing to rescue his daughter who was trapped in the dragon’s lair.

Knights that set off up the mountain never came back but King Hollis didn’t lose hope that one day someone would be strong enough to save his daughter.

Little did he know that it was usually Laura herself fighting off the knights, she did not want to go back and be forced to marry.

She would much rather stay with the dragons and spend her time fighting off knights and making out with the very hot human form of her dragon girlfriend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was based off the tumblr AU prompt “Look I know they kidnapped me on the day of my arranged marriage but I’m actually way more free than I ever was now that I’m finally out of that castle. Also I’ve spent long enough chilling with the dragon to know that their human for is hot so yeah I’m gonna go make out with this dragon shifter and together we will fight off any of the knights who come to steal me back.”


	8. Adventures in Flying Mistletoe

Days had passed and summer had come and gone and the group found themselves back at Silas for another semester and all of a sudden it was the Christmas season already.

Things between Carmilla and Laura were still tense at least in a romantic sense. They had worked out most of their issues but neither wanted to take the first leap back into a relationship in fear of getting hurt again.

It was like those first few months stuck in a dorm together all over again. 

There were a few differences though, the most important one being that Laura had just opened the dorm door to see Carmilla chasing something down the hallway that was flying in the air.

That was definitely new.

Carmilla was making a point not to try and hide her less than human qualities anymore and it really didn’t bother Laura at all now but chasing and swatting things like a cat was starting to get ridiculous. 

It never failed that anytime they were together, eventually Carmilla would tense up and start swatting at something in the air, always brutally destroying it before Laura could see what it was.

It wasn’t until one day they were both sitting outside in the early morning after having to vacate the dorms due to some supernatural disaster that Laura finally saw it. The sun had only been up for a little while now and Carmilla had been up most of the night so she had fallen asleep next to Laura, eventually sliding down to lean against Laura’s shoulder.

Not long after Carmilla fell asleep, Laura noticed something flying towards them. It was a small cage in the shape of a ball and it wasn’t until it hovered over her head that she realised what was inside.

It was mistletoe, of all things.

Flying mistletoe.

Mistletoe that was not going to take no for an answer clearly because after a little while of hovering over their heads, it got closer and closer to them until it finally ended up bumping Carmilla in the head.

Only the fact that she was extremely sleepy saved the flying mistletoe’s life. She sat up and swiped at it but it was slow enough that the mistletoe avoided it and rose up above their heads again.

“Is that what you have been destroying these last two weeks?”

Carmilla huffed and looked away from Laura awkwardly, “its that crazy ginger’s. It’s supposed to be a ‘push in the right direction’ they said. Its stupid, is what it is.”

“They built this? I thought they didn’t mess with too much stuff like this?”

“They said that it had to be done.”

“It cute, I guess? I hope the Zeta’s don’t see it. They will make it their next party game.”

Carmilla shifted around some more, putting some more distance between them and wouldn’t meet Laura’s eyes.

The mistletoe bounced around some more to make sure their attention was on it but it only irritated Carmilla more who jumped up, ready to attack it again. Without really thinking about it, Laura jumped to her feet as well and put a hand on Carmilla’s arm to stop her.

“They are just going to keep making more of them, you know?”

“Then I will just keep destroying them, unless you have a better idea?”

“Well, we could always give it what it wants,” Laura stepped forward and Carmilla tensed up automatically, not sure how to react.

A gentle press of lips against her cheek was all that Carmilla felt before Laura stepped away with a small smile.

Above them, the mistletoe did a few little flips before flying off, it’s job done for now.

It would take a long time for things to really progress between the two of them, but maybe this was a good start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone was curious, the ball of flying mistletoe does exist. I saw it in a catalog we got in the mail and it sparked this idea. The real one is bigger and a little different but I thought one that you couldn't see coming at you from miles away would be better for the story.


	9. Adventures in Ghosts

Carmilla slowly floated behind the unexpecting Zetas, waiting for the right moment to really mess with them.

It maybe petty but when you’ve been dead for three hundred years, you’ve gotta manufacture your own excitement sometimes.

Plus, there was a limit to the things you could do when no one could see you or touch you and you couldn’t touch them either. The most she could do to someone themselves was make them feel vaguely cold.

After doing this so long though, she had figured out what she could and couldn’t do and she had worked up the perfect prank to pull on the obnoxious Zetas.

All that was left was to push the final item into place but before she could go through with it, a hand was suddenly on her arm which after three hundred years, understandably came as a shock.

“What are you doing? Don’t be mean. Kirsch and his bros maybe annoying but they don’t mean any harm,” the light brown haired girl said, looking straight at Carmilla who was still floating there slack jawed.

“...what?”

“You were going to do something to scare them, weren’t you?”

“I… yes?”

“Then don’t,” the girl finally seemed to realize that she was still holding onto Carmilla’s arm and let go and turned to leave.

“Wait!” the girl stopped and turned back around and looked at Carmilla questioningly.

“You can see me? Hear me?”

“Yup, and I’ll be keeping an eye on you from now on so stay out of trouble! I’ve got to get to class though, see you around,” she started walking away but then turned back one last time, “I’m Laura Hollis, by the way. What’s your name?”

“C-Carmilla,” the ghost stuttered out still shocked from this whole thing, that a human was actually talking to her.

The girl, Laura, nodded and then left with a smile.

* * *

 

By the time Carmilla snapped out of her shock, Laura was nowhere to be found so she resorted to breaking into the students records office. Well, it wasn’t exactly breaking when she could just fly through the walls.

Computers were luckily one of the things she could interact with so she didn’t have any problem getting into the computer with the student records since she had watched the person in charge of them type in the password enough times.

A few minutes later and Carmilla was looking through Laura’s file. Apparently she was a first year student which was why Carmilla hadn’t seen her until now and that she was in room 307 with Betty Spielsdorf.

She also found Laura’s class schedule but decided it would just be best to wait for her in her room instead of chasing her from class to class so off she went to the dorms.

* * *

 

Waiting for Laura to get done with classes was one of the hardest things that Carmilla had done in all the years she had been a ghost. She needed answers. How could she see her? What was she going to do? She had touched her too, that was weird. It was weird enough for Carmilla to be touched by something so warm as a human hand but hadn’t it felt weird for Laura too? She assumed she would have felt cold to the touch.

Eventually, after Carmilla had pilfered through all of Laura and Betty’s things twice, Laura came back.

“Pranking Zetas and now going through someone’s stuff. You are just a troublemaker, aren’t you?”

“How can you see me? Touch me? I’ve been around a long time and I’ve never met a human who can see me as well as you apparently can. The closest was a little child who seemed to know when I was around.”

Laura placed her bag on her desk and then sat down on her bed which was opposite of where Carmilla was floating above Betty’s bed, “I don’t know really, I’ve just been able to see ghosts since I was little.”

“It doesn’t bother you?”

“Truthfully? It used to when I didn’t really understand what was going on and why no one believed me but after I got older I got used to it.”

“You stop ghosts from their fun often then? That can be dangerous, you know.”

“Not all the time, it’s just that I was more curious about you than anything.”

Carmilla was surprised, “curious about me? Why?”

“Because you are the most, uh,” Laura eyed her then looked away with a little bit of a pink tint to her cheeks, “well formed ghost I’ve seen? Most are just blobs that can’t hold their shape or they are missing parts or things like that but if you weren’t floating, you could pass as a normal human.”

It was true, there were plenty of ghosts around but many were just useless things that couldn’t hold a conversation or a form at all. They weren’t exactly great for conversations.

“Still with me?” Laura asked after Carmilla didn’t reply for a few minutes, it wouldn’t have been the first time that a ghost had zoned out and then disappeared mid conversation on her but she really hoped that Carmilla would stick around for a little while.

“Yeah, I’m still here, just thinking.”

“Good so, can I ask a probably personal question?”

“Sure, why not?” normally Carmilla liked to keep to herself but really other than a few other ghosts like herself, she hadn’t talked to anyone in a very long time. It was refreshing.

“Do you know how long you have been like this? You said it had been a while.”

“About three hundred years.”

Laura whistled, “whew, that is a long time.”

After that the two of them talked for a while longer, until Betty walked in and started questioning why Laura was just sitting on her bed staring at Betty’s bed. Once Betty walked into the bathroom, Laura said goodbye to Carmilla and Carmilla left, heading back to the abandoned part of Silas that she usually rested in.

Over the next few days, Laura didn’t see much of Carmilla but apparently Betty did because after a few days she suddenly moved out of the dorm, practically crying because it was haunted.

It earned Carmilla a good long lecture about haunting people but it got Betty out and Carmilla was free to take over the now empty side of Laura’s dorm room after it was clear that no one wanted to take a chance that the room really was haunted.

Laura was even offered a chance to move out of the dorm but she refused with a quick glance to a seemingly empty room to look at the ghost lying on the other bed without a care in the world.

Lafontaine and Perry had a habit of bursting into room 307 but they had no idea why sometimes when they did that Laura would fly away from the extra bed in her room in a panic with a blush on her face as if they had caught her in the middle of something.

Luckily they were good enough friends that they didn’t ask why Laura’s clothes were always askew whenever that happened.


	10. Adventures in Quidditch

“Buzz off, small fry!” a small dark haired girl yelled at the girl who appeared on a broom next to her trying to steal the quaffle.

“No way, we are going to win this time!” Laura, the other girl, cried out ramming into Carmilla and making her drop the quaffle that Laura quickly snatched up.

Carmilla, understandably, was mad and flew her little training broom over to Laura as fast as it would allow but Laura was one step ahead of her and threw the quaffle up, flipping on her broom and using the broom to bat it into the middle hoop.

The audience of all the other students that had recess that period cheered but then the teacher blew her whistle and Laura flew over to them, giving them all high fives as she went passed.

Recess was over for now and Laura’s team won but there was always tomorrow for Carmilla to win back her pride. She would not go down without a fight.

Recess quidditch was very serious business for seven year olds, you know.

* * *

 

Quidditch was the hot thing at Morgan’s School for Gifted Children, specifically the two best players, Laura Hollis and Carmilla Karnstein.

Both girls were purebloods but neither of them came from quidditch playing families so it was a very big surprise to all the teachers at Morgan’s that both girls had such a talent for playing it at such a young age.

Both girls started attending Morgan’s at the age of four and they both were avid fans of the little mini games of quidditch that took place at recess and after school on fridays but kids weren’t allowed to play until seven years old or six if they are particularly adept at broom riding.

From the moment they played their first game against each other, they took to it like ducks to water, often managing to pull off moves that shouldn’t be possible on training brooms that have strict limits to win at the last minute.

Carmilla did some tricks of her own but Laura was really the best at them and was usually the crowd favorite but Carmilla was the one who used strategy to throw the other team off balance and kept them guessing about what her and her team were going to do.

If they worked together, they would be a force to reckon with but both girls could not get along to save their lives.

They spent their seven years at Morgan’s against each other- they didn’t get along even before they started playing against each other- and every knew that once they got to Hogwarts, the quidditch matches were going to be amazing.

They would be able to go against each other as true Chasers with no limits on their brooms and it would be a spectacular sight.

No one ever dreamed that they would end up in the same house together.

* * *

 

“Feels weird to finally be here, doesn’t it? I can’t wait to fly on a real broom!” Laura said to Carmilla as they waited in line to be called up to be sorted. They were not friends by any stretch of the imagination but the other kids in their year had been forced to go to other schools by their parents- Hogwarts was still working to regain its reputation- so while they did know some older kids who had been with them at Morgan’s, they didn’t know any first years there so they had to band together at least a little bit.

“Knowing you, you are going to try a trick immediately, fall off and break all your bones. I’m sure Skele-gro will taste wonderful.”

“Uh, aren’t you the one who is more likely to fall off? You aren’t even that good at tricks.”

“Excuse me? At least I don’t rely on some trick to win. I actually plan things out unlike some shrimp of a girl who just goes all out.”

“YOU ARE ONLY AN INCH TALLER THAN ME!” Laura yelled out and suddenly the hall was quiet, even the sorting hat who had been in the middle of announcing someone’s house stopped to stare at Laura.

After a few extremely awkward minutes, the headmistress cleared her throat and everything went back to normal.

“Nice going, Hollis.”

“Shut it, Karnstein.”

Laura crossed her arms and sulked, she’d already made a bad impression on her professors and it was all Carmilla’s fault. As usual.

Before Laura could dwell too much on all the times Carmilla had gotten her into trouble in the past, Carmilla was called up to the hat.

The hat seemed to debate for a few minutes on her but finally placed her in Slytherin.

It didn’t surprise Laura at all.

Carmilla was greeted warmly at the Slytherin table and after a few more kids were sorted, it was finally Laura’s turn.

Laura wasn’t too worried about where she would be placed. All her family before her had been Gryffindors with the occasional Ravenclaw thrown in. She was sure she would be placed in one of those.

“Ah, what do we have here? A Hollis? A Gryffindor, I would say but maybe that isn’t quite right for you,” the hat spoke quietly to her so that only she could hear and the only thing she could think was, _not Slytherin, please not Slytherin._

“Oh, what’s this? Not Slytherin, eh? Why was that the first thing that came to mind when I said not Gryffindor?”

She tried to picture Carmilla and all the issues they have had together but the hat just kept on, “you think it is because of the girl but you know deep down what is true. You are no Gryffindor.”

“I think, SLYTHERIN,” the hat shouted just because it knew how much Laura was not going to like it.

With a sigh, Laura slid off the stool and headed to the Slytherin table where Carmilla sarcastically patted the seat next to her, not thinking that she would actually take it.

But because Laura just loved to irritated Carmilla, she sat next to her anyway.

Both girls watched the rest of the sorting ceremony with the same thought running through their heads.

Quidditch was not going to be the same.

* * *

 

Their first flying class went as well as all that knew them expected.

Immediately they were scouted for the Slytherin team even though they were young, their skills clearly showed.

However, despite how good they were, they couldn’t exactly work together.

“Karnstein! Hollis! I’ve had it!” Danny the team captain yelled at them after another failed practice, they had lost the last two games because they couldn’t work together and now they couldn’t even manage a practice session without being at each other’s throats, “you are done! Off the team unless you can manage to work together. I don’t want to see you near the field while we are practicing, got it?”

And just like that, they were off the team and they were not happy at all.

“It’s your fault, Carmilla. You should have just let me get the quaffle. I was closer.”

“Yeah right, it makes more sense for me to have gotten it so that you would be there to catch it if I needed to pass quickly. Its strategy, not that you’d know anything about that!”

They both huffed at each other and stormed away from each other but it didn’t last long seeing as they were roommates.

Their stubbornness lasted until after the first game that was played without them. They stood in the stands and watched the game intently, knowing their house could do so much better if they were just out there too.

“Maybe we should rethink this,” Laura looked at Carmilla out of the corner of her eye, trying to gauge her reaction but the girl just lifted her eyebrow at her.

“Rethink what?”

“Playing against each other. It’s kind of all that we know but maybe it’s time to learn something new.”

“Like actually play together? Without fighting?”

“Yeah, think you can do it?”

Carmilla was going to say that she wouldn’t do it but of course Laura had to phrase it so that she couldn’t refuse. There was nothing that Carmilla Karnstein couldn’t do.

Even get along with her arch nemesis.

* * *

 

Practice was not going well but they were both too stubborn to give up.

They would sneak out at night to use the field when no one was around with Lafontaine and Perry who Laura had roped into helping them but they just couldn’t work together.

They were too used to working against each other.

They even got Danny to give them another chance, to let them practice with the team but after a while it dissolved into their normal fights and arguments and they were kicked out again.

Neither was allowed to play for the rest of the year.

When second year rolled around Danny was willing let them try again but it was still the same.

They were a little older but not any wiser, apparently.

It wasn’t until Carmilla was talking to a first year they knew from Morgan’s that she had an idea.

They spent so many years playing their miniature quidditch, maybe they should try to work together doing that?

It took a while to set up, to get ahold of some training brooms that they could comfortably use and to set up a field but once it was done, Carmilla was proud of her work.

It didn’t hurt that Laura was very impressed and excited by it either.

Things started off rocky like usual and Lafontaine and Perry were not looking forward to another year of trying to get them to work together but eventually it was like something clicked for the two of them and they found that they could work a little bit together.

It wasn’t much, but it was a start.

The four of them kept at it and it was a sight to see to see four witches riding around on training brooms just above the ground but it worked for them and finally they moved back to the actual field at night where they forced Lafontaine and Perry to practice with them some more.

Two weeks before their first big game of the year against Gryffindor, they approached Danny who was not happy to see them but eventually relented to give them one last and final chance.

They made it through the first practice a bit shakily and with a bit of frustration but Danny was willing to take a chance on them in the game.

As it turned out, Danny was right to take a chance on them. When they worked together, they were unstoppable.

And it only got better as the years went on and they became inseparable.

The only time they had anymore issues was in their sixth year when they broke up, it made for some tense games but with a little help from their teammates, they got back together and all was good.

The start of each year was Carmilla’s favorite time because she loved the look on the first year’s faces if they were from Morgan’s because they may have been young when Laura and Carmilla were still there but the kind of rivalry they had wasn’t easily forgotten.

Of course news had spread to Morgan’s that they were working together now, but it was nothing compared to seeing it in person.

The shocked expressions were Carmilla’s favorite thing in the world.

Second only to Laura herself.


	11. Adventures in Body Swapping

“Now, I know this does appear to be rather bad, but the alchemy club is being pushed around the clock to get this fixed. In the meantime, it would be best to stick near your body so that you can warn whoever is inhabiting it of possible allergies and the like so that we don’t have anymore unfortunate occurrences,” Perry said using Danny’s body to do so. The alchemy club's latest experiment had ended up causing anyone in a certain building to switch bodies randomly.

It was chaos for a while but in true Perry fashion, she managed to get things sort of in order and kept most people from freaking out while Danny, in Perry’s body threatened the alchemy club.

“Please do try and stay near and don’t leave campus for any reason. I imagine once the alchemy club is ready to fix this, they will need us all together so keep in touch,” Perry finished and dismissed the grouchy group of people who had been switched then met up with Carmilla and Laura.

“Wow, that’s amazing how you got them all to calm down like that,” Laura said while smiling brightly at Perry except Laura wasn’t in her own body so it was just a little bit odd to see Carmilla smiling at her.

Especially when it looked like Carmilla was smiling at Danny which is something that Carmilla scowled at using Laura’s body.

This was not going to be fun by any means but it could be worse.

Carmilla looked over to where Lafontaine’s body awkwardly shuffled over to them.

“Bros, how do you live with being this short? It’s so weird. I can’t reach anything.”

Yes. It could definitely be worse..

* * *

 

“Oh no, no way you are not going out in my body dressed like that,” Laura said as she watched her own body walk out of the bathroom dressed in Carmilla’s signature leather pants and corset,” how did you even get me into those things?”

“Give yourself a little credit, cupcake, you look good in these,” Carmilla said, blatantly checking out Laura’s body in the mirror.

“Only because you are in me. If it was just me I would be so awkward… don’t even say it. I know what you are going to say. Just don’t.”

Carmilla smirked at her because really Laura should know better than to phrase things like that around her by now, “oh come on, what’s got you all grumpy? You may be in my body but that doesn’t mean you have to be grumpy too.”

“I’m not grumpy.”

“Sure, whatever you say. Let’s get back to the court yard and scare up some alchemy nerds before the new Xena version of raggedy ann flips out more than she already has,” Carmilla headed towards the door but Laura grabbed her arm a little roughly, forgetting about Carmilla’s body’s super strength.

“Sorry but no way are you going out dressed like that. Go change, you know that my body does actually need to breath right? How are you breathing in that corset?”

“What are you going to do about it if I don’t?”

“I will.. I…” Laura trailed off but then her eyes lit up as she looked down and realized she had a pretty good bargaining chip too, “I will dress you up in the nerdiest thing I own. I’m thinking full on Hogwarts uniform or I think I still have my pink teddy bear polo somewhere. I bet you would look amazing in that polo with your hair pulled back with a nice pink headband-” Carmilla held up her hand to stop Laura from continuing. The mental image was getting bad enough.

“Okay, I give. I will change but can we compromise maybe?”

“Fine.”

Eventually they agreed on them both wearing ripped jeans and old band shirts though Laura did pick hers because of a very vague fandom reference.

* * *

 

Twenty four hours later, just about everyone was switched back to their original bodies except for Laura and Carmilla. Apparently Carmilla being a vampire put a small kink in the alchemy club’s cure but they assured that in another twenty four hours, things would be back to normal.

Or maybe forty eight.

Or seventy two.

Within a week, definitely.

Carmilla and Laura, understandably, weren’t very thrilled with this arrangement but it could be worse.

At least they get along well enough even though they found out that their normal make out sessions were going to have to be put on hold thanks to this whole body switching thing. It was just too weird for them to be essentially kissing themselves.

This lack of kissing thing had Carmilla in a rather foul mood but Laura was acting just as bad by day three of being switched.

“Okay, this room is not big enough for us to both be dark and gloomy so what gives? What’s wrong? Tired of being me?” Carmilla asked, taking a seat next to where Laura was curled up on her bed.

“No, it’s nothing.”

“Clearly it’s something.”

“It’s not!” Laura bit out harshly then her eyes widened as she realized what she did, “okay, but it’s nothing serious just…”

Carmilla put her hand on top of Laura’s, “just?”

“I just feel a little uncomfortable like something is off but I don’t know what it is or really how to fix it. Maybe like something is… missing? But it feels like it’s getting worse.”

Laura shrugged, not really knowing how to describe what she was feeling but Carmilla took the time to really look at her own body that her girlfriend was currently inhabiting.

Her vampire body.

That hadn’t been fed since this happened.

God she was an idiot, why didn’t she think of this before? They were just lucky that she didn’t go on a feeding spree. Carmilla leaned forward and rested her head in her hands which of course made Laura worry.

“Carm, is something wrong?”

“I’ve got good news and bad news, any preference on which you’d like to hear first?”

“Uh, good news?”

“I know what’s happening with you and how to fix it.”

“Okay, so what’s the bad news?”

“Laura, you well, my body is… hungry.”

Laura’s face scrunched in confusion, “but we had dinner a little while ago?”

“Not that kind of food, cutie. The liquid kind.”

It took Laura a few seconds then her face scrunched up for an entirely different reason, “Ew, really?”

“Sorry, you will feel better if you do. I don’t know how much longer this switching is going to last but if you can hold out until then I will deal with it then. You don’t have to do it.”

“I don’t really feel hungry though? I thought it would be more of an insistent need, I guess.”

“For some it is, not for me though but that’s bad in a way.”

“Really?”

Carmilla was silent for a moment, lost in her memories, “most new vampires have such a need for blood that they don’t realize what they are doing and so they don’t taste the blood but I didn’t have that kind of need and so I could taste it all the time. It took so long to get used to it. Maman used to have to force me to drink it, I would have rather died than drink at that time.”

“Carm,” Laura shifted to reach out to Carmilla but she moved too fast and ended up basically falling into Carmilla’s lap.

“Whoa,” Carmilla gently pushed Laura off and made her lay down, “stay there I will be right back with a warm washcloth for your head. It will help. If you could stand to take a warm shower that would help even more but I don’t know if you are up for that. I’ll go see if I can be threatening in this body of yours and ‘help’ the alchemy club move a little faster to.”

Carmilla headed into the bathroom and Laura swung her legs to the side of the bed and stood up carefully.

They really didn’t know how long it would take for the alchemy club to fix this and she was not going to let Carmilla suffer with a weak and barely functioning body when she got it back.

She had to do it.

Laura shuffled her way over to the mini fridge for actual milk and hot chocolate mix and after a few minutes in the microwave she had a nice cup of hot chocolate that she quickly ruined by adding some of Carmilla’s “soy milk” to it.

By the time Laura made it slowly back to her bed with her cocoa, Carmilla finally came out of the bathroom.

“Okay, so maybe you are right. Maybe we do need to do laundry more often. It took forever to find a clean cloth.”

Laura accepted the cloth but instead of lying down right away, she took a careful sip of her drink.

It was definitely not her normal hot chocolate but it wasn’t completely terrible and she knew why.

Maybe Carmilla’s body was used to the taste of it by now but Laura thought it might be a little more than that.

Carmilla usually tried hard to make sure that she hadn’t had any blood before kissing Laura but it didn’t always happen. Their first kiss was very much on the metal tasting side seeing as Carmilla had just been brought back from the brink of death by blood but Laura didn’t care then and didn’t really care now when it happened either.

It was just a part of Carmilla and it was just something that happened when kissing Carmilla.

“Is that…?” Carmilla frowned at Laura, she couldn’t smell the blood or anything really but Laura was getting less pale the more she drank the cocoa so something had to be going on, “Laura… I didn’t want you to have to do that…”

She may not have been watching Laura physically drink it since she was still in Carmilla’s body but knowing that Laura was drinking blood didn’t really sit well with Carmilla. It wasn’t something she ever wanted Laura to have to do.

“It’s okay. I feel a lot better now and it's really not that bad.”

“You don’t have to save face for me, it tastes horrible.”

“No really. Do you know how many times you’ve left cups of blood around that I have accidently picked up and taken a sip of before realizing what was happening? It happens more often than you think and that’s pretty bad but this with cocoa is tolerable, I guess. Besides, you will be thanking me later when you get your body back and you aren’t completely run down.”

“I’m sorry.”

Laura gasped, “Carmilla Karnstein actually apologizing for something? I thought I would never see the day.”

Laura tried to joke about it but Carmilla was giving her that look, the one that usually meant she was about to try and tell Laura that she didn’t understand how much of a monster she was.

Just as Carmilla was about to delve into a no doubt deep discussion about vampire ways and how dark it was and all that, Perry burst into the room to tell them that the alchemy club was finally done with the cure.

They didn’t talk about it much after they were switched back but Laura did learn something from that experience that she thought she might one day thank the alchemy club for.

She was pretty sure, when it came down to it, she would be willing to spend a long life as a vampire with Carmilla.


	12. Adventures in the Kingdom of Revenant

“-you will do it, won’t you, Hollis?”

“Of course, Queen Morgan.”

“Good. Prepare to leave within a week. Take those that you truly trust and those that trust you. The beast you are going to face is very cunning and manipulative. It will try to use your army against you but I know that you will be able to defeat it once and for all,” the queen of Revenant said to Laura and then dismissed her rather quickly but Laura didn’t mind. She was ready to get as far away from the queen as possible.

“Laura, no. You can’t do it. It’s suicide! It’s a suicide mission!” Danny said angrily but tried to keep her voice down so that others wouldn’t hear them.

“I know that and the queen does too. She wants me gone, you know that. Either I die trying to fight this thing or I win and she gets rid of one of the two pests in her life.”

“Do you have a plan? How can we help?” Perry asked Laura but she just shrugged. She had a plan, but it wasn’t one they were going to like.

“Then we just have to win then, yeah?” Lafontaine looked at the three of them, “when do we leave? You know we will be with you no matter what.”

Laura smiled, “thanks guys. We leave in a week’s time so take this time to prepare and say goodbye to anyone you need to, okay?”

By the time dawn arrived the next morning, Laura was already setting out towards the beast’s territory alone. The queen may have wanted to get rid of the traitor’s daughter, but that doesn’t mean that Laura had to play along and drag everyone else down with her.

The only reason Laura had been allowed to serve in the queen’s guard in the first place was so that the queen could keep an eye on her, to make sure that she wasn’t going to be a traitor to the country like her mother was.

Now it seemed that the queen had gotten tired of her and was ready to do away with her by sending her out to defeat a monster at the edge of the kingdom. No one ever came back from trying to kill this monster so they didn’t even know what it was but Laura was determined to at least try.

The queen would have her killed if she came back without having killed the monster and every other kingdom in the world hated anyone from Revenant so she would be automatically killed there as well.

Really her best chance was to take the beast’s territory which was a rather large patch of land for one beast.

Many had tried to take it before, entire armies had gone up against this beast but it was believed the beast was working with some sort of mage or had magic itself because it was very skilled at turning large groups of people against each other, delving deep into their insecure hearts.

Either way, Laura’s normal life was over.

* * *

 

The land was rather barren between the area where the Revenant castle was and the area the beast had claimed so Laura made great time getting to what she believed was the monster’s lair seeing as there wasn’t much sightseeing to be done.

The lair was a large cave that had been scouted out many times by many kingdoms so Laura knew she was in the right place. It was what lay inside the cave that no one had ever lived to report back about.

With only a little bit of hesitation, she headed into the cave. She knew that her group wouldn’t be coming after her, the queen wouldn’t let them so it was best she just got it over with, whatever may happen.

Immediately after walking in an intense fog start surrounding Laura, making it hard to see and even a bit hard to breathe it was so thick.

Laura pulled her sword from its sheath and used what little magic she had to set the blade on fire that helped dispel the fog from around her a little bit.

Magic was absolutely forbidden in Revenant after her mother had betrayed the queen so she had never gotten a chance to really explore her powers and it wasn’t like anyone was around to teach her how to use it either. She could only do what came naturally to her and that wasn't much.

Up ahead, the darkness seemed to shift and suddenly a very large, black as the night beast appeared before her and Laura took a swipe at it with her sword but she was no match for the speed of the beast who used a giant paw to knock Laura against the wall with a resounding thud.

The last thing that Laura saw was the darkness shifting around again, shrinking into the size of a human.

* * *

 

Ice cold water splashed onto Laura’s face and she was instantly awake. She tried to move her arms to wipe away the water but found that they were tied up to the wall with what looked like a very strong vine.

“Wha?”

“She wakes. Finally,” a rough female voice said causing Laura’s head to shoot up but the woman was hidden by the thick fog from earlier.

“Who are you?”

“I think the better question is, who are you? After all, it is you who came into my house.”

“Your house? I didn’t…”

“You did. Why are you here?”

“Why did you tie me up?” Laura countered and the woman chuckled darkly.

“You are the one who attacked me first, buttercup.”

“I didn’t!” she protested but then it started sinking in, “you are the monster? In the cave? Who has been killing everyone?”

“You say that like I am out pillaging villages. I only kill those who come into my territory.”

“Why am I not dead then?” Laura was genuinely curious.

“Because you smell like her.”

“Uh, who?”

“Maria.”

Laura’s face scrunched up in confusion, her mother knew the beast in the cave that plagued Revenant?

“She was my mother.”

At that the woman stepped out of the fog and the fog disappeared, “she had a kid? That would explain why you smell similar.”

Laura had spent a good amount of time imagining what the beast would look like on the way here but the dark haired beauty before her was nothing like she could have ever imagined. She also never imagined that she would be this close to the beast and they would both still be alive.

The dark haired woman was right in Laura’s face now, really studying her features it seemed, “it was that bumbling idiot wasn’t it? Your father. General Hollis I think it was. I can see them both in you.”

“He was my father, yes,” Laura didn’t know why she was answering the woman’s questions so easily but really at this point it didn’t matter. She was still sure she would either die by the beast’s hand or by the queen’s if she returned.

“Was?”

“He was killed when I was five after my mother turned traitor to the country. The queen thought that he was involved. I’m still not sure why she didn’t kill me too.”

“Mother probably thought you would be good revenge, if she could raise you up to be a good little knight to work for her. It’s something Maria would have absolutely hated.”

Laura looked at the woman strangely, “your mother?”

“Oh you didn’t know? She didn’t tell her little soldiers that she was sending them to kill her own daughter? Typical. Let me introduce myself then,” the woman pushed off from where she had been leaning against the wall and mock curtsied, “I’m Carmilla Karnstein-Morgan, the bastard daughter of Lilita Morgan the current queen of Revenant.”

“But-but you’re well...I saw you, you shifted into some kind of monster before. Was your father, um…” Laura trailed off trying not to offend Carmilla who could very well decide to kill her at any moment.

“Oh no, you’ve got it all wrong. My father was a human. It’s my mother that’s the monster.”

* * *

 

After a little more talking, Laura managed to talk her way out of the vines and they ended up sitting comfortably in the house that Carmilla had managed to make for herself in the back of the cave.

It was actually rather cozy and nice now that she wasn’t tied up anymore.

That day, Laura learned more about the history of her family and of Revenant itself than she thought there was to learn.

Apparently, Maria had learned of the queen’s dark secrets and with Carmilla’s help they tried to put an end to the queen but it had failed spectacularly, resulting in Carmilla being completely cast out and Maria and her husband being killed once it was proved she was the traitor.

Carmilla and Maria had been friends before they decided to take down the queen and luckily Carmilla actually knew quite a bit of magic and under her guidance, Laura really tapped into her powers.

Carmilla was all for staying away from the queen, she didn’t want a repeat of the past and Laura agreed for a while until her friends showed up, having been sent by the queen to die, much like Laura had.

To honor Carmilla’s wishes, they never went after the queen directly but as more and more people started being sent to die in the beast’s territory, it slowly turned into a kingdom of its own.

The kingdom of Silas, ruled by two queens that continued to grow and grow until it eventually took over the entire kingdom of Revenant, finally putting an end to the evil queen’s reign.


	13. Adventures in Snow People

“Okay, so we will be doing this in teams of two,” Laura immediately threw herself into Carmilla’s side when Perry announced that, causing Carmilla to roll her eyes at the girl but it was just for show.

It’s not like she would be willing to team up with anyone else in this inane game.

“We will have thirty minutes to make a snowperson look like ours partners, you can use anything you find as long as its not going to damage it and that it isn’t magical. The Summers have agreed to judge for us and they will be judging on how well your snowperson is made and how well it represents your partner but there is a catch,” Perry pointed out a newly formed wood wall in the middle of the courtyard, “you can’t see each other while doing this so you will each be on a side of the wall the Zetas made for us. Pick a side and then one side will be allowed to go get supplies for your snowperson then the next side will go. Okay? Ready. Set. Go!”

Carmilla’s side got to go first so she slowly stomped off to the dorms. She had been under the impression that she was going to be doing this with Laura. Maybe she wouldn’t be too mad if she just went back to bed and didn’t go back down there in the cold?

In the end, she ended up grabbing a few things and headed back outside to start constructing her masterpiece.

If she was going to do this, she was going to do it well.

* * *

“Time is up! Step away from the snow people, people,” Mel shouted and then the judging began.

Lafontaine had managed to find some red yarn they curled up into hair for their snow Perry and had slipped some rubber cleaning gloves on snow Perry’s stick arms and taped a spray bottle to one of them.

Perry’s snow Lafontaine had a syringe for samples hanging off of one hand but in front a few science beakers with different colors in them sat in front of the snow person one was set to look like it had exploded color all over snow Lafontaine.

They got good points from the Summers then Kirsch and Danny were up next.

Unfortunately Danny and Kirsch spent too much time arguing over their interpretations of each other that they both ended up with just lumps of snow when time was up.

Then it was Laura and Carmilla’s turn.

Laura was rather proud of herself with the snow Carmilla she had made.

She had grabbed one of Carmilla’s oversized band shirts that the vampire liked to wear when she could be bothered to change into something to sleep in and managed to slip it over snow Carmilla’s body.

While in the dorm gathering stuff she had also grabbed the container of “soy milk” and a couple pieces of a white mug that she had dropped a few days ago that was still in the trash. The white pieces served as nice fangs for snow Carmilla and Laura made sure to dip them in the blood and to drip some on the snow person too.

Laura got plenty of points, the Summers decided that the real blood was a nice touch.

Then came Carmilla’s snow version of Laura. No one had really thought she would put much effort into it but she had and it surprised them all.

Snow Laura had cookies in both hands and cookie crumbs all over the mouth area. A Hogwarts scarf was wrapped around snow Laura’s neck and a gryffindor hat was stretched over snow Laura’s head.

Real Laura narrowed her eyes when she noticed what looked to be puncture marks peaking out underneath the scarf and subtly shifted her own scarf to cover her neck up some more.

In front of snow Laura, a small table with Laura’s laptop was set up in front of it, recording the unmoving snow Laura. Next to the laptop was still steaming hot cocoa in Laura’s TARDIS mug and a package of cookies that was half gone.

The details really went over well with the Summers who declared Carmilla and Laura the winners of their little snow person tournament.


	14. Adventures in Bad Influences

Laura stared at the open wardrobe, her clothes spread out all around her.

She had a big problem.

One that was entirely Carmilla’s fault but she had already headed out with Mattie to god knows where.

The problem was that Carmilla had done laundry for once and had tried to be helpful and washed Laura’s clothes as well which normally would have been awesome except for the fact that after the whole running for their lives thing multiple times, Laura didn’t have much of a wardrobe left.

And what she did have left had been washed with Carmilla’s clothes.

Carmilla’s clothes that got blood all over them because for whatever reason she always seemed to eat messily when Mattie was around.

Laura wasn’t even sure really how it happened but somehow after being washed together now all her clothes were stained in some way with blood which at Silas wasn’t really that big of a deal but students were being allowed to go home for a week.

Except it wasn’t exactly allowed, it was more like an evacuation order due to something that Mattie wouldn’t tell them about but they had come a long way and Mattie seemed to have a handle on things and was actually thinking about the students now so Laura would happily take the chance to go home to see her father.

If only she could find something decent to wear.

Sure she had left some clothes at home but with all the running and fighting she had done since leaving home, she had gained quite a bit of muscle. Most of her clothes wouldn't fit anymore.

What’s a girl to do? Wear her clothes and try to explain the blood stains in a way that her father wouldn't freak out over?

Laura took another look at the wardrobe and suddenly had another thought but it was interrupted by her phone buzzing with a text from her father saying he was waiting outside the dorm building for her.

With a sigh, she hastily changed clothes and threw some more into a bag, hoping this would go over a little bit better with her father than blood stains.

* * *

 

They managed to get about halfway home before her father finally said something, “honey, you know that I will support you in whatever you do as long as it isn’t dangerous but isn’t this new look a little…dark for you?”

Laura looked down at the dark jeans and purposefully ripped black shirt, “um well, they aren’t really mine.”

Her father looked at her strangely, “you know if you needed to buy some new clothes I would have happily sent you some money.”

“No, no. It’s not that. It’s just that this week off was kind of sudden, you know? And most of my clothes were dirty.”

“You could have brought them with you, you could have washed them at home.”

“Well they are actually already in the washer so it would have been bad to stop it and bring wet clothes, you know?” It was a horrible excuse but it was still better than ‘all my clothes have blood on them because my roommate/maybe girlfriend is a vampire and doesn’t know how to do laundry properly.’

“Are they just going to sit in the washer until next week then? They are going to get ruined, let’s go back and get them.”

He was already looking for a place to turn around at but she put a hand on his arm, “it’s okay, really. Carmilla said she would put them in the dryer then put them up for me.”

“Well if you are sure… So those are her clothes then? She sounds like a good friend.”

Laura rolled her eyes, she knew what he was trying to ask but she didn’t really have an answer for him. Sure they were more before but now things were strained between them. They weren’t really just friends but they weren’t together right now either.

“They are and she is. She was nice enough to lend them to me.”

Well, Carmilla didn’t exactly know that Laura was wearing her clothes but Laura didn’t think that she would mind really.

“I’m glad you’ve made such good friends there, even if she does seem to have different tastes than you. I’m just afraid she is going to be a bad influence on you.”

Laura spent the rest of the car ride skillfully avoiding questions about Carmilla and their friends.

But mostly Carmilla.

* * *

 

Once home, she found that her clothes didn’t fit at all so she bagged them up to be donated later on and after one day of wearing Carmilla’s clothes her father gave her money that he claimed he was going to give her during reading week and sent her to get more clothes.

She got a few more things in her normal style but mostly stocked the money away in case something came up at Silas. She also found a pair of black combat boots on sale that she got for Carmilla since the vampire was in sore need of new boots.

Her father’s face when she walked in with them, thinking that they were for her, was hilarious but it was nothing compared to the faces he made when she continued to wear Carmilla’s clothes around the house.

They were comfortable and it certainly didn’t hurt that they smelled like Carmilla.

They smelled more like home than home did.

* * *

 

Two days before she was due to head back to Silas she got a text from Carmilla asking if she knew where the vampire’s favorite tank top was.

Laura definitely knew where it was and without really thinking about it because it was the middle of the night, she quickly took a picture and sent it.

Within seconds she got a reply back from Carmilla, “you can keep it. It looks better on you, but make sure you bring it back because if I don’t get to see that sight in person it would be such a shame.”

Then Laura looked at the picture she had taken. She’d forgotten she had kicked off her pants earlier because it was too hot in the house with the heater on so she was only wearing her underwear and Carmilla’s tank top. It was clear that she wasn’t wearing a bra either.

She was halfway through typing out an apology, that she didn’t realize what she was doing when her phone buzzed with a picture from Carmilla.

A picture of Carmilla only wearing one of Laura’s button down shirts complete with washed in blood stains.

As Laura considered what kind of picture to send back, she realized that maybe her father was right. Maybe Carmilla was a bad influence on her.

But as she looked at the picture of Carmilla again, she decided she didn’t really care too much and that she really needed to get a better phone preferably with a bigger and better screen.


	15. Adventures in Secret Santas

“Really Danny, this doesn’t have to be as hard as you are making it. If it’s dark or leather, she's going to like it,” Laura groaned as she followed Danny into the fifth store as they looked for a present for Carmilla.

Doing a secret Santa thing seemed like a good idea at the time but after Danny drew Carmilla’s name, the Summer came to Laura for help.

Laura didn’t think it would take this long to find a present.

“It has to be good, not that I really care that she gets a good present. It’s just that if I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it well. Oh, let’s go there,” Danny pointed out another store but Laura flopped down onto a bench.

“How about you go look? I’m exhausted.”

“Sorry for dragging you around so much.”

“It’s okay, really. Just let me rest for a few minutes and I’ll be as good as new.”

Danny headed off to the store after a few more assurances from Laura and Laura took the time to stretch out on the bench and relax.

Thankfully, Laura already knew what she was getting for her secret Santa person. She’d drawn Perry’s name and she was instantly reminded of how Perry was complaining that her gloves weren’t thick or long enough to handle a very nasty mess a few weeks ago. Hopefully the ones that Laura had found would be able to stand up to Silas messes.

When Laura looked up again, Danny was standing above her clutching a bag with a big grin on her face.

“Looks like you found something?”

“Yup.”

“Oh thank god. Can we go back to campus now?"

* * *

 

Before they knew it, it was time to exchange gifts before winter break and everyone was excited. Even Carmilla was getting into the Christmas spirit a little and Mattie seemed to bit a bit less cynical for the holidays. It was a Christmas miracle that she wanted to play along with their secret Santa thing in the first place.

After a bit of debating, it was decided that Lafontaine would go first. They presented Danny with a concoction that was supposed to keep all Zetas from being within fifty feet of wherever she put it.

Danny’s turn was next and she handed a carefully wrapped package to Carmilla who took it warily. Inside the package was a black tank top with a picture of fangs in the background with the words “I suck” below it.

“I’ll treasure it forever, Clifford,” she said mockingly but she was grinning and hurried to put it on, not caring that that required her to strip off her original shirt in front of everyone first.

Once dressed again, Carmilla handed a slim package to Lafontaine with a warning to keep it upright. Everyone was understandably confused when Lafontaine removed the paper to reveal a vial of blood and Carmilla shifted uncomfortably, suddenly wondering about her gift.

“It’s uh. It’s my blood. So you can study it or whatever…” Carmilla trailed off but then Lafontaine’s eyes lit up in excitement. They likely would have left right then to get started on it but Perry took up a strong grip on their arm to keep them still.

To keep some sort of order going, Lafontaine picked Laura to go next and Perry loved the gloves, talking about how much better they were and how much she could clean now.

Then it was Perry’s turn. She fidgeted a bit before taking a deep breath and pulling out her gift from behind her and handing it over to Mattie who unwrapped it as if it was going to attack her at any moment.

“Um. Understandably, I had no idea what to get you so I cheated just a little bit and asked Carmilla and she told me about this cake like pudding that you used to love. I tried my best to get it right but it was something that I’ve never made or tasted before.”

Mattie dipped her finger in it and tasted it, “it will do.”

Faster than anyone could blink, Mattie and the pudding were gone and a thin letter with a bow stuck on it was floating down into Laura’s lap.

Everyone was waiting so Laura quickly opened the letter, took it out, and started reading it silently to herself but it didn’t take long at all for her to quickly fold it back up and stuff it into her pocket without anyone else read it.

“Are you blushing? What did she say?” Danny asked.

“N-Nothing. You know Mattie, same old same old. I think we should all probably turn in early right? We all need to pack to go home, right? See you later!”

Laura rushed out of the room and Carmilla followed behind her slowly with a raised eyebrow. She was definitely going to have to find a way to read that letter.

_Laura,_   
_My gift to you is that I will acknowledge and approve of your relationship with my sister provided that you don’t ever hurt her in anyway again and that the two of you keep the noise level to a minimum and realize that I, as a vampire with enhanced hearing, do not want to hear what the two of you get up to behind doors, closed or not._


	16. Adventures in Actresses

“What makes you think she will even read a letter from me? She’s famous now, she’s probably completely forgotten about me,” Laura said quietly, not wanting to risk waking up the sleeping child in the next room.

“Because she was totally into you when we were in school together, you were just too straight back then to notice,” Danny shot back from where she was draped over Laura’s rather small couch.

“Even if that was true, what makes you think she would still care now? That was years ago, Danny.”

“Let’s put it this way, you don’t have much to lose by trying right? It’s the only thing your kid really wants for Christmas. You can at least try.”

With a sigh, Laura gave in, “fine. I mean it’s just a letter right? It’s not like she's even going to read it I'm sure. She must get mail all the time from fans.”

“That’s the spirit, Hollis. Now if you don’t mind, it’s time for me to head home.”

“Yeah, thanks for watching Sarah for me until I got off work as always.”

“No problem, see you two tomorrow.”

And so Laura sat down to write a letter to her former high school friend turned celebrity for the sake of her daughter.

* * *

 

Despite Danny’s insistence, Laura was really sure that this wasn’t going to work out and went ahead and bought Sarah her first kids tablet for Christmas instead. If she couldn’t let her daughter meet her favorite actress then at least she could give her her own device to watch the episodes on.

Seeing as Sarah was only six, Laura was still a bit worried about her dropping it and breaking it even if it was just on accident so she had made sure to get one with a very good bumper around it which came in handy a little earlier than expected.

She wanted to already have some episodes and some games on it so that Sarah could play it as soon as she unwrapped it so Laura was carrying it around as she checked the mail, waiting for things to download.

When she saw the letter addressed to herself from THE Carmilla Karnstein, she flat out dropped the tablet.

There was no way Carmilla had actually read her letter, let alone replied. It just couldn’t happen.

Not even bothering with the tablet that was still on the floor, Laura hurriedly opened the letter and read it quickly.

In the same pretty but precise handwriting Laura remembered from high school, Carmilla told her that she did in fact remember her and seeing as she was actually going to be back in town visiting family she would be happy to meet her new little fan. She even gave an email address so that they could communicate quicker and set up a meeting time.

Two things popped into Laura’s mind at that time. One, she was very glad that Sarah was at kindergarten and didn’t walk into the room to find her new tablet on the floor. Two, she was never going to hear the end of it about how Danny was right.

* * *

 

The day before Christmas, Laura and Sarah headed out to the park. It was a bit chilly but not bad at all, luckily it hadn’t even snowed yet this year so Sarah was happy to go play without question.

She hadn’t told Sarah about meeting Carmilla today, just in case Carmilla didn’t show up. No reason to disappoint Sarah if it didn’t work out.

Laura had zoned out a bit just watching Sarah play and thinking about her high school years when someone suddenly sat down on the bench beside her. It wasn't anything unusual so it took a few minutes before Laura actually looked to the person next to her.

“Whoa.”

Carmilla raised an eyebrow at her, “good to see you too, cupcake.”

Before Laura could stutter out a reply, a ball dropped and rolled to her feet causing her to look up at her very shocked looking child.

The silence lasted only a few minutes before Sarah set into full fan girl mode at the sight of her favorite actress from her favorite show in front of her for real.

Laura could tell that Carmilla was regretting this but to the woman’s credit, she answered all of Sarah’s questions that she could and paid plenty of attention to her.

Before long though, Sarah was exhausted and it was time to leave. She didn’t normally take naps during the day anymore but getting to meet your favorite actress clearly took a lot out of the six year old.

Before Laura could pull her daughter away, Sarah insisted on getting a hug from Carmilla and Carmilla didn’t have the heart to refuse and opened her arms to the girl.

It took way longer than it should but eventually Sarah let go and reluctantly left with her mother, talking at rapid speed the whole way home.

It wasn’t until they walked into the door that Sarah handed her a piece of paper.

“What’s this?”

“I don’t know. Carmilla told me to give it to you when she hugged me. It’s a bunch of numbers right? Is it a phone number?”

“Um…” It was. It absolutely was Carmilla’s phone number and Laura didn’t know what to do.

* * *

 

The next day, Danny was waiting for Laura when she got off work.

“I told you so. Now please tell me that you texted her at least. You can’t let this opportunity go to waste.”

Maybe Danny was right about this too.

Maybe she should give this a chance.


	17. Adventures in Chocolate Volcanoes

It was getting late and the bar was about to close and Carmilla was glad. She generally enjoyed her job as a bartender but sometimes it became a little too much to deal with all the drunks that came in.

Plus Kirsch, even though he was really the only one she could stand to work with, was getting on her nerves today too.

It had been unusually slow for the last half hour and there was only a half hour left to go before the place closed when a girl walked in, her bare feet slapping loudly against the hard floor of the bar all the way until she got to the bar and took a seat.

Normally, Carmilla would have no problem pointing out the no shirt, no shoes, no service signs that were up all over the place but the girl looked like she was having a rough day already. Plus, she was cute.

“What can I get you?”

“A chocolate volcano, extra volcano.”

Carmilla paused, she had been doing this for a few years now and liked to think that she knew her drinks but this was something she had never heard of and was slightly afraid to find out.

Just as she was about to admit she didn’t know what it was, Kirsch saved the day.

“Yo, little nerd hottie, having a rough day?”

The girl just looked at him, “you think?”

Kirsch turned to look at Carmilla, “I got this, wanna start cleaning up?”

“Uh, sure.”

Carmilla started wiping down the other tables and then wiping down the bar itself but paused when she noticed Kirsch coming out of the back with what looked to be a giant chocolate covered ice cream concoction that the girl dug into quickly.

Ten minutes to closing, Kirsch brought another out to the girl then left Carmilla to finish cleaning up.

“Sorry, I didn’t realize that it was so close to closing time. I’ll hurry,”

Carmilla waved the girl off, normally she would be physically removing people by now but she was almost fascinated by how much chocolate the girl was consuming.

Once she was done with the cleaning she went behind the bar and leaned on it asking the girl, “so you know Kirsch?”

“Yeah we go to Silas together. He’s a good guy once you get past all the bro stuff.”

“He can be. At times.”

“Want some?” the girl asked holding out her spoon to Carmilla but she politely declined and went back to put the cleaning stuff away. She had nothing else to do except lock up the place.

It looked like she was going to have to kick the girl out after all, she was only half way through the second chocolate monster concoction.

Or maybe she could go ahead and hurry things along.

Carmilla pulled a fresh spoon out of a drawer then moved around the bar to sit next to the girl and didn’t even hesitate to dig in.

It was so much chocolate, more than she would normally eat at once but it was good too.

“I’m Laura, by the way. Are you Carmilla?”

“I am. How did you know?”

Laura shrugged, “Kirsch talks about you sometimes.”

Carmilla choose to ignore that, there was no telling what Kirsch was telling people about her. Instead she was more interested in what had Laura so worked up for earlier so she asked her.

“It’s nothing really.”

“You came in here all rumpled looking with no shoes on and ordered something that I didn’t even know we had the ingredients for. I think it’s something.”

“I… Well, my ex Danny came by the house earlier. We’ve been trying to at least be friends but I freaked when we fell back into our old routine.”

“Ah, men. They sound like a lot of trouble. I’m afraid that’s not really my area of expertise or interest, sorry.” Of course the cute girl was straight. Of course.

“Huh? Oh, Danny is a girl. She’s just… so protective of me. I don’t need another father, I need a girlfriend. And even for the few minutes she was in my house she started talking about how I shouldn’t keep this here because I might hurt myself or to be careful with the knife I was putting up and that’s why we broke up in the first place because I couldn’t take it anymore. I just freaked and took off running. I grabbed my keys but didn’t even think about grabbing shoes or my phone. Just took off and ended up here after wandering around for a little while.”

So she’s not straight.

Excellent. But still…

“How come she was at your house so late at night?”

“She called and said she wanted to talk about something and she couldn’t sleep so I told her she could come over so we could try and keep our friendship but I think she wanted to talk about getting back together but I don’t want to do that again- oh my god I didn’t realize what time it was it's so late you should have closed up a long time ago I am so sorry.”

Laura hopped off the bar stool and hurried to get money out to pay for it then handed it to Carmilla who took it to the back to get change since she had already closed out the register. Within a few minutes she came back with not only the change but a pair of shoes and a jacket too.

“You can either let me drive you home,” she got interrupted by Laura saying she didn’t live too far from there, “or you can take my extra shoes and my jacket. No buts.”

Laura opened her mouth to argue but ended up taking them anyway when she noticed that Carmilla did already have shoes on and that these really were extra ones.

“Thank you, I’ll send them back with Kirsch soon, okay?”

“That’s fine now don’t take this the wrong way but get out so I can close up and go home.”

Laura mock saluted the girl before heading out the door and starting her journey home. Part way there, she stuck her hands in the jacket pockets because it was cold and found a piece of paper inside it.

It was likely Carmilla’s and she really shouldn’t snoop but she couldn’t stop herself from taking it out and unfolding it.

It was a little note with neat loopy handwriting with a number written at the top.

_You may not be ready right now but when you are ready to try dating again, give me a call._   
_Or even text me before then and we can just talk if you want. I’ll make sure to get Kirsch’s recipe so be sure and come back some time._   
_-Carmilla._


	18. Adventures in Potion Shops

A cold wind blew strongly but it didn’t affect Carmilla. she was a vampire on a mission. She was finally going to get free of her mother after three hundred years.

All she needed to do was get a few rather rare ingredients from a potion shop she had found out about from a poor familiar she had threatened. Witches and vampires didn’t get along generally and no vampire would be caught dead- again- in a witch village.

Yet here she was.

Sneaking in using her vampire abilities to grab what she needed.

Except maybe she shouldn’t have underestimated witches and wizards.

“What the hell do you think you are doing?” a loud male voice rang out and suddenly Carmilla was knocked off her feet in a flash of light.

She hit the wall but quickly recovered, dashing forward and tackling the man but after they rolled a couple of times he chanted and suddenly she couldn’t move.

“I’ll ask again, what are you doing?”

“None of your business.”

The man raised his eyebrow at her, “really? You made it my business the moment you broke into my shop.”

“Dad? What’s going on?” a new voice said as a young woman walked into the room, wand held cautiously out in front of her.

“Laura, go back to bed.”

Laura just looked at her father, “uh, no. I’m not a kid anymore. You can’t hide me from everything. What is going on?”

“We have a trespasser,” he sighed.

“I’m still here you know,” Carmilla huffed out, tired of them talking about her like she wasn’t there.

“Oh I’m well aware. I’m just trying to decide what to do with you.”

Carmilla chuckled darkly, “whatever it is just get on with it, I’ve got things to do and nothing you can do to me will ever compare to what Maman has done and will do when she finds out what I tried to do.”

Laura’s father looked at her strangely but before he could say anything, Laura spoke up, “so what did you try to do?”

“I needed some things.”

“And why didn’t you just buy them?”

“Because you guys use some ridiculous currency that I have no way of getting? Plus, I’m pretty sure the things I need aren’t going to come cheap.”

“What do you need them for?”

“Should I just bare my soul for you right now? My entire tragic backstory? Sorry cutie, buy me dinner first. Then we will talk backstories,” Carmilla gave her her best seductive grin but Laura just smiled back.

“Okay, meet me at the dinner on the edge of town, Smokey’s, tomorrow at say seven?”

Carmilla’s mouth dropped open, that was certainly a shock but it was more of a shock to Laura’s father who practically bellowed out her name and went on about how she shouldn’t go out with girls who had literally just been caught breaking in but Laura ignored him with practiced ease and set about disarming the spell that held Carmilla mostly still.

Before she knew it, Carmilla was standing outside the door to the potion shop with a promise to meet Laura tomorrow night.

This was not how she thought her night was going to end.

* * *

 

In the end, the two did meet for dinner and Carmilla ended up spilling her entire story to the girl. It certainly wasn’t her intention but it happened nonetheless. Laura didn’t seem too put off by the fact that Carmilla was a vampire, she took it in stride. It turned out to work okay though because Laura helped her get the ingredients needed to take out Maman and even helped to make sure everything was set up right. With Laura’s help, her plan went off without a hitch and finally she and her siblings were free to do what they wanted.

Two weeks after the fall of Maman, Carmilla found herself back at the potion shop but this time she walked in the front door.

“I seem to have a debt to repay. Any chance I can work here to pay it off?”

It was a resounding “no” from Laura’s father but Laura was quick to agree and eventually her father had to cave in and agree or risk upsetting his daughter.

And so a vampire started working in a potion shop in a little witch village that was run by her soon to be girlfriend and her girlfriend’s father.

Things were never boring again.


	19. Adventures in Narcolepsy

Many things changed after finding out that Carmilla was a vampire. Most notably was the whole keeping Carmilla tied up for nine days but even after that, Carmilla took great care not to hide anything from her anymore.

Laura got to see all the blood drinking and the congealed blood in the bottom of her favorite cups. Blood splatters all over Carmilla’s clothes that Laura always ended up washing because they would start to smell if she didn’t.

The fangy smirks.

Staying up all night.

General vampire shenanigans and honestly while it was annoying and frustrating because it just added to the natural level of filth that appeared anytime Carmilla appeared, nothing of that really made her uncomfortable.

Sure, blood in the soymilk container was a shock but after that it just became a normal thing at Silas, like the killer books in the library and the tree in the courtyard that mysteriously disappears at random hours.

The one thing that drove Laura absolutely crazy though was that as soon as the sun broke the surface, Carmilla was out like a light and wouldn’t wake up until the sun went back down.

It wouldn’t be much of a problem really, if it wasn’t that nine times out of ten, Carmilla was no where near her bed when it happened.

She thought that Carmilla was just ignoring her when she would sleep during the day while she was tied up and it wasn’t until she woke up in the morning and found Carmilla slumped by her bed in a very awkward looking position that she realized this was another vampire thing.

After an hour of determining that no matter what she did, Carmilla wasn’t going to wake up, she drug the girl up into her bed and tucked her in because she was still feeling guilty about tying her up and starving her for nine days.

But then it started happening more and more often.

At some point, Laura gave up on using an alarm clock because the sound of Carmilla hitting the ground- or the chair, or the desk, or the wardrobe- was the best and most consistent alarm clock there was.

She ended up complaining loudly to Carmilla about it one day, telling her she needs to try to make it to the bed so that she didn’t have to drag her to it, but immediately regretted it the next morning.

Clearly she should have been a bit more specific because as soon as the sun came up, suddenly there was a sleeping vampire draped across Laura who was in her own bed.

Laura learned something that day, sleeping vampires were literally dead weight.

Carmilla ended up lying across Laura’s stomach trapping one of her hands in such a way that she couldn’t really get any leverage to push Carmilla off or to pull herself out from underneath the vampire.

Eventually she gave up and had to call Danny for help.

Laura was pretty sure that it was the sheer fact that Carmilla knew that Danny had been around her when she was sleeping that kept her from landing on top of Laura again.

At least, in bed.

* * *

“Oof, Carmilla I swear to god,” Laura huffed as suddenly a vampire was sprawled across her lap while she sat at the desk.

She’d started getting up early, before the sun came up so she could watch and make sure that Carmilla got to bed in time to fall asleep but she’d gotten distracted by a paper she had due later that day that she wasn’t quite happy with yet.

After initially sprawling all the way across her lap, Carmilla ended up sliding down so she was mostly on the floor with just her head across Laura’s lap. It was certainly an awkward position but it was better than some positions Carmilla had ended up in.

Now Laura had a choice. She could either get up and move Carmilla and probably lose track of what she was doing on her paper or she could just deal with it and move her when she was done.

Half an hour later, Laura found herself running a hand through Carmilla’s hair while she concentrated on her paper.

Thank god she could sleep through anything.

* * *

 

They pretty much had a system going now, Laura would wake up early and get Carmilla to bed before she fell asleep. It usually involved a series of bribes and conditions to get it to happen but it usually did and it worked for the two of them.

Then came a day that Laura was sick with a cold and just could not get up before dawn like she normally did.

“Carm,” she croaked out from her bed, “go to bed, it’s almost dawn and I am not getting out of this bed to haul you off the floor.”

“I’ve got like five minutes. It will be fine. Raggedy Ann said this would help you get better faster so I’m waiting for it to heat up.”

“You went to Perry? During the night?”

Carmilla ignored her and instead poured a cup of something that smelled of lemon and honey and walked over to set it on Laura’s head board so she could reach it.

As soon as it touched the wood, a tiny bit of light started shining outside the window and without really thinking about what she was doing, Laura grabbed Carmilla’s arm and pulled causing her to land on the bed.

“What the-” and then the vampire was fast asleep.

On Laura’s bed.

When Laura was too sick to move her or even try and push her off.

Luckily the covers had already been bunched up down by her feet after she kicked them off earlier, if Carmilla had landed on the covers there would be no way that Laura would have been able to move.

Sighing, Laura reached over and took the drink Carmilla had gone through the trouble of making for her and started sipping it.

It didn’t take long before she finished it and she had to admit she was feeling a little less foggy now but she was still really sleepy.

How exactly was she supposed to sleep with a vampire in her bed though?

As it turns out, she slept really well once she realized that Carmilla wasn’t really cold to the touch but she was just slightly cooler than your average human and while Laura had been too feverish to sleep before, now she easily fell asleep cuddled up next to her roommate.

After that day, Laura didn’t have to get up before dawn anymore to make sure Carmilla got to bed because almost every morning, Carmilla would slip into Laura’s bed on her own and would fall asleep there.


	20. Adventures in Soulmate Dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, another soulmate AU. I can't help it. I love them.

As a baby, Laura spent a lot of time in and out of clinics and hospitals thanks to her paranoid parents but they did have a right to worry even though they wouldn’t find out that there was nothing they could do until years later.

Baby Laura would only sleep for a while before she would wake up flailing and screaming her little lungs out, incredibly upset. They thought that surely something had to be wrong with her, that something was hurting her but no matter what tests were done, they could never find anything wrong but it happened nearly every time she went to sleep.

It wasn’t until Laura started talking really good that they figured out what was going on. She was seeing her soulmate’s memories in her dreams. It was a common occurance these days and someone had even suggested that that was the case before when she was a baby but they didn’t believe it.

Even though they felt a little bit better that there truly wasn’t anything wrong with their daughter, it presented a whole other set of problems for the future.

What kind of soulmate did Laura have? Her soulmate seemed to be going through some terrible stuff from what they could piece together from Laura’s toddler talk and from all the times she would wake up crying as a baby.

“She’s so sad. She’s so scared,” Laura would say over and over again when they would ask her about her dreams. They thought that maybe Laura was talking about herself in third person but as Laura grew up and learned pronouns and could talk normally, she continued to use female pronouns for her soulmate.

Eventually, Laura stopped telling her parents the things that she saw in her dreams. Once she realized that the person, Maman, who her soulmate seemed to interact with so much wasn’t human her parents stopped believing her. It wasn’t every night that people had soulmate dreams so they thought she was confusing it with just a normal dream but she knew what she saw at night.

She may have only been six at the time but she knew that what she saw was real. Vampires existed and her soulmate was one of them.

Someone named Mircalla.

* * *

 

Laura grew up as normal as one could while seeing dreams of what her soulmate was up to almost every night. She used to enjoy the nights when she wouldn’t have a dream about her soulmate but now she just worried that Maman had finally gotten tired of her and killed her. She was always so grateful to wake up in the morning to realize that her soulmate was still alive.

Now it was time for her to go off to college. Her father still wasn’t sure why she wanted to go to Silas so bad but she didn’t want him to know that it was because some of the things she saw on the campus tour were already familiar to her.

She was scared to delve into this world of vampires and other monsters but she wanted so bad to find her soulmate and help ease the loneliness that she always felt from her soulmate. That didn’t mean she had to let her father know that she was walking right into the vampire’s den though.

Her “I’m going to save my soulmate no matter what” attitude lasted until the first time that Laura saw Maman in person for the first time.

Maman was standing on the stage, addressing the entire student body for orientation and Laura felt her heart drop to her feet.

Maman was the Dean of Silas.

This wasn’t going to end well.

* * *

 

Betty disappeared and added a whole new problem for Laura. She, of course, wanted to get Betty back just because she didn’t want Betty hurt or anything but it was a problem because she knew what was going on. She knew about the giant monster that they were feeding girls to.

She knew that Mircalla was the one who led Betty away.

She had been at the same party with her soulmate. They had been so close but of course Laura didn’t know until afterwards when she dreamt of it that night.

But that also meant that Mircalla was still having to work for Maman, was still having to steal girls but she also knew how often times Mircalla would try to get the girls to leave but she did have to occasionally take some in.

But she still had no idea how to go about finding and then talking to Mircalla.

In all the dreams, she never remembered catching a reflection of what her soulmate looked like and even after she found her, what was she supposed to say? “Oh hey so I know everything that’s happened to you for like the last fifteen years. I know all about vampires and your mother is evil. Want some help getting rid of her?”

She was sure that would go over well.

* * *

 

“Carmilla… I’m your new roommate, sweetheart.”

Great. Just great. A new and clearly happy roommate was exactly what she needed right now as she was up to her elbows in trying to figure out how to find out who her soulmate was and how to help the girls and stop Maman.

The only plus side to having Carmilla the roommate from hell was that she seemed to not care at all about anything Laura did which was good. It meant she wasn’t going to go snooping into her research.

If Carmilla found out that she was researching the Dean and went to the Dean about it, Laura was as good as dead without even being able to meet her soulmate, let alone help her.

And then, as if things weren’t complicated enough, she found the blood in the soy milk container.

If she were anyone else, she probably would have just thought it was some ridiculous prank that Carmilla was pulling but she knew better. She knew full well that there were vampires at this school and though she hadn’t ever seen Carmilla in Mircalla’s memories, she knew that Maman had plenty of minions to do her dirty work.

* * *

 

“-even you deserve better,” Laura meant it, she really did. Not just from this but she knew that as annoying as Carmilla was as a roommate, she didn’t deserve to have to work for Maman. Who knew what kind of horrible things she had made Carmilla do? If it was a fraction of the things that Mircalla had to do…

It didn’t matter right now though. Carmilla wasn’t her focus. She had to find her soulmate and save the missing girls.

At least, that’s what she thought but when Laura woke up the next morning after having seen herself through Mircalla’s- or rather Carmilla’s- eyes in her dream last night telling her that she deserved better, it changed everything.

But it also made sense. She vaguely remembered Maman talking about how Mircalla changed her name but since Mircalla was what Maman usually called her, that’s what she came to know her as too.

She really should have seen it though. Carmilla. Mircalla. Very similar. Plus the fact that Carmilla was a vampire but that she hadn’t seen her interact with Mircalla before.

It was because they were one person.

Her soulmate was her roommate from hell.

* * *

 

Laura had it all planned out. She knew exactly how she was going to tell Carmilla about them being soulmates and when it was going to happen but it had taken a few days to set up.

The day before she was ready to tell her, Carmilla ended up getting yelled at by the Dean for not doing what she was supposed to do. Lafontaine found it hilarious but Laura knew that it was so much more than the Dean getting onto Carmilla for being a bad student or whatever.

She was talking about the sacrifices.

Laura was trying to figure out what to say, to try and make it better for Carmilla after Lafontaine and Perry left but when Carmilla sat on her bed and launched her book at the wall, Laura acted on instinct.

“We’re soulmates,” she blurted out and understandably Carmilla’s head shot up in confusion.

Well, that certainly wasn’t the plan.

Carmilla was already panicking, Laura could see it in her eyes so Laura tried to make it better, “it’s okay. I know what you are going through. What you’ve been through. It’s-”

Before she could even finish, Carmilla was gone in a puff of black smoke.

* * *

 

It took a week before Carmilla came back and she was pretty sure it was only because the Dean had come by a few days earlier asking about Carmilla. Somehow, Laura had managed to stamp down her nervousness enough to tell Maman that Carmilla had been around but that she had been busy working on something.

It was an absolute lie, but it seemed to work.

“You lied to the Dean for me,” was the first thing Carmilla said when Laura walked into their dorm room after class.

“I didn’t want you getting into trouble.”

“Why?”

Laura looked at her strangely, “because I care?”

“Why?”

“Carmilla…”

“You said you knew what I’d been through, what have you seen? How much do you know?” Carmilla seemed almost nervous to find out the answer.

Laura’s eyes went wide and she spoke in a hushed voice, “she isn’t watching us somehow, is she? To find out what I know?”

“The Dean? No, no… I just…Look, nevermind. It was stupid. I-”

“I’ve been seeing your memories since I was born but I really only started remembering things after I was about four or so. So anything significant in your life for the last fifteen years, I’ve seen.”

Carmilla paled even more and shifted around, uncomfortably, “like what?”

“Do you really want me to go into details?” Laura asked, taking a seat on her own bed as Carmilla nodded, “okay well, most of the time I see you talking to the Dean who I know you call Maman. I got to see everything for your perspective too so I know how you felt all the times you had to deal with her. I know about the coffin of blood and Elle because they have been mentioned in passing but I also know about the thing down below that you have to sacrifice girls too and how you try not to do it but sometimes you have to. I know that that’s why the Dean was after you the other day.”

“So basically, you know that I’m a monster. Great.”

“I know that you are a vampire. I don’t think you are a monster though.”

“Clearly you haven’t seen enough then.”

“Try me.”

They spend the rest of the day going through what Laura did and didn’t know. She hadn’t thought that Carmilla would be comfortable with her knowing all this and she wasn’t at first but once it became clear that Laura did know quite a lot and still didn’t see her as a monster seemed to lift a weight off the vampire and she was a little less guarded with things.

Carmilla was insistent that they didn’t go after Maman yet but Laura knew what whatever happened, they would get through it together now.

* * *

 

“You know, you never did tell me what memories of mine you saw,” Laura said as they laid in bed together during a time of peace after Maman was taken care of.

“Well, despite the fact that you seemed to have seen basically every day of my life, I didn’t really see that much about you. For over three hundred years I didn’t have any soulmate dreams as you call them so when I did, I didn’t really know what they were. I think the first one I saw was you had gotten lost some where and thought you were never going to find your parents. You were very small then, I think.”

“Oh, I remember that. I was five. We’d gone Christmas shopping and some how my mom thought I was going with my dad and my dad thought I was going with my mom when they split up to get through the store quicker and I was too busy looking at toys to noticed that they were leaving without me.”

“I barely remember that since that was before I really knew what was happening. It was after your mother died that I realized maybe there was more do these dreams than I thought. After that it was the night you found out that girl was cheating on you with a guy then I don’t think there was much else until the time you saw Maman on the stage. At the time, I didn’t know why that was such a big deal for you but it was because you knew who and what she was, didn’t you? 

“Yeah, I knew vampires were real but that was the first time I had actually seen one. Did you know I was your soulmate before I told you?”

Carmilla rolled over slightly to face Laura, “sort of.”

“What do you mean?”

“I knew you were close after you saw Maman on stage so I really tried hard not to pay attention to any dreams that I had. I didn’t want to know who my soulmate was because I knew that they would be disappointed in what I was. I thought for sure that you would think that I was a monster and not want anything to do with me or at the very least, that you would want me to change for you. So I managed to block out the dreams but I think there was still something there, I could tell a little bit. Somethings you would do would seem so familiar, especially when I would watch your videos.”

“So I guess my blurting that out was quite a bit of a shock to you, wasn’t it?”

“Very much so. After I took off, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to face you. I didn’t want to find out what you thought of me but then I saw you lying to Maman for me and I thought it was worth the chance.”

“I’m glad you came back,” Laura snuggled into her girlfriend’s side.

“Me too, cupcake. Me too.”


	21. Adventures in Summer Breaks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe I'm an idiot but I'm having to post from my phone this morning and can't figure out how to do the line breaks. Later if I get a chance I will fix it on the computer.
> 
> Edit: the button isn't there anymore??? Soon who wants to inform me how to put line breaks in html?

Months ago Laura had found herself dreaming about coming back to her childhood home during summer break. She would miss her friends and Carmilla of course but back then she just desperately wanted a break from all that was happening at Silas.

Her home life seemed adventurous before but it was nothing compared to vampires trying to open up gates to hell so Laura thought she’d get to have some peace once it was all over with and she got to go back to her dad’s.

But as her luck would have it, it wasn’t. The first couple of days she spent on edge from having to constantly lie to her father about things that had happened at Silas and then after that she was drug to various relative’s houses that she couldn’t care less about.

Then her father saw a news report about a black panther in the area and made it his personal mission to try and find some panther spray to add to her collect of bear spray.

She had a sneaking suspicion she didn’t have to worry about the panther attacking her. She was pretty sure she knew who it was but Carmilla didn’t seemed to actually want to come near her right now. Most likely just keeping an eye on her after everything that had happened.

Things were awkward between them to say the least.

Laura sighed as she sat by the window in her room, watching as the panther stalked back into the shadows in the forest. She had just set her cup down next to her when she heard the door slam and her father yelling downstairs.

“Laura!! I saw it!”

The sound startled her into knocking her cup over, spilling the liquid all over her seat. Her father was going to freak even more than he already was if he saw it so she quickly threw the cup into the trash nearby just in time for him to burst through the door.

“I saw it! I saw the panther, Laura! We have to do something, I’m sure bear spray would- what is that? Is that blood? Are you hurt? What happened? I-”

“Dad!” she yelled, catching his attention, “it’s nothing I’m just having a female problem right now so if you could leave so I can clean up, that would be great!”

Predictably, his face turned red and he promptly back pedaled out of the door.

He’d never been too good at dealing with periods.

It had been a pain when she was younger but now it served to be the perfect excuse. Explaining that the blood just came from the cup she was drinking would have been even worse.

Yes, while they may have finally gotten rid of the Dean for good this time, it came at a cost.

She was a vampire now and it was really messing with her summer.

~

“Oh honey, I am so proud of you for keeping up with your sunscreen. I used to have to almost sit on you to get you to let me re-apply it when you were younger,” her dad commented as she slathered her skin for the fifth time since they arrived at the beach for a BBQ with some of their extended family.

“Yeah, just trying to stay safe, you know?”

Vampires may not turn to ash in the sunlight but they sure do burn very easily she was finding out.

The sun was so bright to her enhanced eyes now too but thankfully no one questioned the fact she hadn’t taken off her sunglasses since arriving at the beach.

Too bad her father seemed to have a psychic sense of when she had stayed under water too long, she was really enjoying not having to come up for air and being able to see underwater.

~

“Are you okay, honey?”

“Yeah, it’s just,” she paused to cough some more, “a little too spicy for me I think.”

“Hmm, it doesn’t seem to spicy. The garlic is a little strong though.”

~

Laura looked at the tall building before her warily. Of course one of her cousins had to get married during the summer.

And of course it had to take place in an actual church not in the nice open pavilion like everyone else seemed to do in this town.

This was something that wasn’t covered in her Vampire 101 session with Mattie before she left for the summer.

Surely, vampires weren’t hurt by churches. Crosses didn’t work so this shouldn’t either, right?

Still though, was it worth the risk of finding out? Maybe she should just say she was sick and go home instead.

“You really need to stop believing everything you’ve heard or read about vampires, cupcake. Go on, you aren’t going to burst into flames or be struck by god or whatever you think is going to happen.”

Laura turned around to see Carmilla leaning against the wall of the church. It was the first time the girl had actually spoken to her since she left Silas.

“I don’t know… It seems to be a pretty common thing, it had to start somewhere, right?”

“Oh for the love of…” Carmilla pushed away from the wall roughly and took two steps into the church before turning to look at Laura, “see? Nothing bad happened?”

As soon as she said that an elderly hand wrapped around Carmilla’s wrist and it took everything she had not to jump out of her skin, “Laura, who is this lovely young lady? A friend of yours? Come in, come in, it’s just about to start. Let’s go get us a seat.”

Laura bit her lip to hold back a laugh at the sight of a very stunned Carmilla being lead away by her great aunt. Later, after they were both seated next to each other for the remainder of the ceremony, she couldn’t help mouthing “nothing bad, huh?” to her which earned her a glare.

As soon as it was over and everyone stood up, Carmilla disappeared into the crowd.

~  
“So…” her father started as they were eating dinner and Laura sighed quietly. This wasn’t going to be good, “Marie said she met your friend Carmilla at the wedding today.”

“Uh huh.”

“How come you didn’t bring her to meet your old man? I would have liked to meet this person you normally can’t stop talking about.”

“Uh, she was just passing through. She wasn’t even planning on coming to the wedding but Aunt Marie kind of dragged her into it.”

“Darn, well let her know that she’s welcome anytime, okay?”

“I will, dad.”

~

Laura laid on her bed in just a bra and underwear, trying to cool down from the heat. Cold she could handle but not heat apparently. She didn’t know how hot it was outside but it was hot.

Way too hot.

And Carmilla was still stalking around in the woods outside of her house in the heat while covered in fur in her panther form.

Eventually, she couldn’t take it any longer and called Carmilla who picked up after only a few rings.

“Something wrong?”

“Yes, it feels like the sun has descended upon this tiny town and is trying to bake everyone alive and you are outside. Please come inside where it’s at least a tiny bit cooler.”

Carmilla was silent for a few minutes, “somehow I don’t think your paranoid dad would approve of a sudden visitor.”

“He said you were welcome to drop by anytime.”

“I don’t think anytime includes two in the morning, cupcake.”

“You can just poof into my room and we will explain it in the morning. Just please. I’m worried about you. I know you are a big strong vampire and can probably handle the heat better than I can but if its this hot in the middle of the night its going to be even worse in the morning so please.”  
Carmilla still wasn’t entirely sold on the idea yet and Laura could tell so she pulled out her last bargaining chip, “I bought a mini fridge for my room for what my dad thinks are protein shakes but it also has a little freezer compartment too. I made blood popsicles. They should be nice and frozen in like half an hour.”

“...Fine.”

To Laura’s surprise, Carmilla didn’t leave as soon as the heat wave broke. She ended up staying a few weeks and if Laura thought the first part of her summer was hectic enough, she was certainly not prepared for spending the summer with Carmilla.


	22. Sorry

Chapter 21 will be the last chapter in this series. I'm suprused I was able to make it 21 days before my very unpredictable life got in the way but my grandparents who I live with and take care of are both not doing too good. My grandmother has been in the nursing home on hospice for a while now and this morning my grandfather was taken to the hospital for the second time in two months. So my free time will be spent at the hospital with him and while I can normally write during those times, I can't do it on the time limit for this.

I will delete this chapter/note in a few days, I just didn't want those who have been looking forward to this daily to not know what was going on.

Thank you all for the comments and kudos and for reading this, it has been really fun and I do have a few ideas from this that I'd like to explore when things calm down a bit. 

A special thank you to tryke14 who has commented in every single chapter. I really looked forward to seeing what you thought after each one.

Thank you!


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